Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems With Oscillator Phase Noise: Performance Analysis and Power Control

Cell-Free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) are two promising technologies for application to beyond-5G networks. This paper considers Cell-Free Massive MIMO systems with the assistance of an RIS for enhancing the system performance under the presence of spatial correlation among the engineered scattering elements of the RIS. Distributed maximum-ratio processing is considered at the access points (APs). We introduce an <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">aggregated channel</i> estimation approach that provides sufficient information for data processing with the main benefit of reducing the overhead required for channel estimation. The considered system is studied by using asymptotic analysis which lets the number of APs and/or the number of RIS elements grow large. A lower bound for the channel capacity is obtained for a finite number of APs and engineered scattering elements of the RIS, and closed-form expressions for the uplink and downlink ergodic net throughput are formulated in terms of only the channel statistics. Based on the obtained analytical frameworks, we unveil the impact of channel correlation, the number of RIS elements, and the pilot contamination on the net throughput of each user. In addition, a simple control scheme for optimizing the configuration of the engineered scattering elements of the RIS is proposed, which is shown to increase the channel estimation quality, and, hence, the system performance. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system design and performance analysis. In particular, the performance benefits of using RISs in Cell-Free Massive MIMO systems are confirmed, especially if the direct links between the APs and the users are of insufficient quality with high probability.

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is considered as a promising technology for providing uniformly good services in future networks. The aim of this paper is to provide the first comparison of the uplink performance of cell-free massive MIMO systems with low-resolution analogto-digital converters under the zero-forcing (ZF) and maximum ratio combining (MRC) receivers. By utilizing an addictive quantization model, a novel closed-form uplink spectral efficiency (SE) expression is derived for the ZF receiver. Moreover, the energy efficiency (EE) of the considered system is analyzed. In contrast to previous works, it turns out that the ZF receiver outperforms the MRC receiver with a large number of quantization bits in terms of SE and EE. Furthermore, it is interesting to find that a better EE-SE trade-off can be achieved by employing a large number of antennas at the access point. Finally, pilot assignment schemes are used to minimize the pilot contamination and a maxmin power control scheme is proposed to improve both SE and EE performance.

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system is a promising architecture for next generation wireless systems by deploying a very large number of distributed access points (APs), which simultaneously serve a smaller number of user equipments (UEs) over the same time-frequency resources. It guarantees uniformly good service at high spectral efficiency with simple linear precoding techniques and max-min power control. In this article, we propose a new joint maximum-ratio and zero-forcing (JMRZF) precoding scheme, where part of APs are combined to perform centralized zero-forcing (ZF), while other APs apply simple maximum-ratio transmission (MRT). Our proposed precoder offers an adaptable trade-off between the spectral efficiency and front-haul signalling overhead. A corresponding AP subset selection scheme is also proposed which is based on large-scale fading coefficients. A closed-form expression for the achievable spectral efficiency of our proposed scheme is derived, which represents a generalized result including both fully distributed MRT and fully centralized ZF cases. Based on this closed-form expression, max-min power control is formulated and solved via the second order cone and first order methods. The former can obtain the global optimal solution, but its computational complexity is very high. On the other hand, the latter technique is sub-optimal, yet, it has very low computational complexity. Hence, it is suitable for large-scale cell-free massive MIMO systems with hundreds or thousands of APs and users. Numerical results show that our proposed JMRZF scheme can substantially outperform the local precoding schemes, even when a small part of APs are combined to deploy ZF and is implementable even when each AP has very few antennas. In addition, it is shown that our max-min power controls improves the spectral efficiency significantly, compared to the uniform power control scheme.

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems can improve transmission performance and spectral efficiency by supporting the nearby access points (APs). This paper addresses the allocation of transmission power and the optimization of user data rate for cell-free massive MIMO systems in the ultra-high reliability and low latency communication (URLLC) scenario, where all the APs simultaneously serve users over the same time/frequency resources. Considering the cell-free environment characteristics, we establish the downlink information transmission models. To guarantee the fairness among users, we aim to maximize the weighted sum rates of users by jointly user data rate optimization and transmission power allocation, subject to the constraints of the minimum data rate requirement, maximum transmission power and signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). Due to the complexity of the cell-free massive MIMO model, we propose a rate approximation method to find a lower bound of the weighted sum rate for the original problem. By the problem decomposition, the closed-form expression of lower bound is derived and the optimization problem is solved iteratively by using successive convex approximation and interior point methods. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method and show that URLLC can significantly improve transmission performance in cell-free massive MIMO networks.

We consider the cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) downlink, where a very large number of distributed multiple-antenna access points (APs) serve many single-antenna users in the same time-frequency resource. A simple (distributed) conjugate beamforming scheme is applied at each AP via the use of local channel state information (CSI). This CSI is acquired through time-division duplex operation and the reception of uplink training signals transmitted by the users. We derive a closed-form expression for the spectral efficiency taking into account the effects of channel estimation errors and power control. This closed-form result enables us to analyze the effects of backhaul power consumption, the number of APs, and the number of antennas per AP on the total energy efficiency, as well as, to design an optimal power allocation algorithm. The optimal power allocation algorithm aims at maximizing the total energy efficiency, subject to a per-user spectral efficiency constraint and a per-AP power constraint. Compared with the equal power control, our proposed power allocation scheme can double the total energy efficiency. Furthermore, we propose AP selections schemes, in which each user chooses a subset of APs, to reduce the power consumption caused by the backhaul links. With our proposed AP selection schemes, the total energy efficiency increases significantly, especially for large numbers of APs. Moreover, under a requirement of good quality-of-service for all users, cell-free massive MIMO outperforms the colocated counterpart in terms of energy efficiency.

A cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network-assisted full-duplex (NAFD) system has been proposed to satisfy the exploding demand of higher data transmission speed and more efficient communication. However, a growing number of users in a cell-free system inevitably leads to pilot contamination. In this paper, we analyze the ergodic spectral efficiency of cell-free massive MIMO NAFD system in the presence of pilot contamination. The cell-free massive MIMO NAFD system model has been investigated and both uplink and downlink channel state information (CSI) is estimated under spatially correlated channels. Under pilot contamination, the closed-form sum-rate expressions of the uplink with maximum ratio combination (MRC) receiver while downlink with maximum ratio transmission (MRT), and uplink with zero-forcing (ZF) receiver while downlink with ZF precoding schemes are derived based on large-scale random matrix theory. Numerical results show that under several environmental settings, the theoretical results match well with the simulated results and cell-free massive MIMO NAFD system has a better performance than time-division duplex (TDD) system. Moreover, simulation results show that the achievable sum-rate of using ZF/ZF could be more spectrally efficient compared to MRC/MRT because of its interference suppression capability.

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a novel beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G paradigm that, through the use of a common central processing unit (CPU), coordinates a large number of distributed access points (APs) to coherently serve mobile stations (MSs) on the same time/frequency resource. By exploiting the characteristics of new less-congested millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency bands, these networks can improve the overall system spectral and energy efficiencies by using low-complexity hybrid precoders/decoders. For this purpose, the system must be correctly dimensioned to provide the required quality of service (QoS) to MSs under different traffic load conditions. However, only heavy traffic load conditions are usually taken into account when analysing these networks and, thus, many APs might be underutilized during low traffic load periods, leading to an inefficient use of resources and waste of energy. Aiming at the implementation of energy-efficient AP switch on/off strategies, several approaches have been proposed in the literature that only consider rather unrealistic uniform spatial traffic distribution in the whole coverage area. Unlike prior works, this paper proposes energy efficient AP sleep-mode techniques for cell-free mmWave massive MIMO networks that are able to capture the inhomogeneous nature of spatial traffic distribution in realistic wireless networks. The proposed framework considers, analyzes and compares different AP switch ON-OFF (ASO) strategies that, based on the use of goodness-of-fit (GoF) tests, are specifically designed to dynamically turn on/off APs to adapt to both the number and the statistical distribution of MSs in the network. Numerical results show that the use of properly designed GoF-based ASO strategies under a non-uniform spatial traffic distribution can serve to considerably improve the achievable energy efficiency.

We present a general framework for the characterization of the packet error probability achievable in cell-free Massive multiple-input multiple output (MIMO) architectures deployed to support ultra-reliable low-latency (URLLC) traffic. The framework is general and encompasses both centralized and distributed cell-free architectures, arbitrary fading channels and channel estimation algorithms at both network and user-equipment (UE) sides, as well as arbitrary combing and precoding schemes. The framework is used to perform numerical experiments on specific scenarios, which illustrate the superiority of cell-free architectures compared to cellular architectures in supporting URLLC traffic in uplink and downlink. Also, these numerical experiments provide the following insights into the design of cell-free architectures for URLLC: <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i</i> ) minimum mean square error (MMSE) spatial processing must be used to achieve the URLLC targets; <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ii</i> ) for a given total number of antennas per coverage area, centralized cell-free solutions involving single-antenna access points (APs) offer the best performance in the uplink, thereby highlighting the importance of reducing the average distance between APs and UEs in the URLLC regime; <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">iii</i> ) this observation applies also to the downlink, provided that the APs transmit precoded pilots to allow the UEs to estimate accurately the precoded channel.

In this letter, we investigate user-centric access point (AP) selection for cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. In contrast to existing works, we study this problem from the perspective of game theory and model user-centric AP service cluster formation as a local altruistic game, which is proven to be an exact potential game (EPG) and to have at least one pure Nash equilibrium (NE). Then, an improved maximum non-neighbor-set-based concurrent spatial adaptive play (MNSB-C-SAP) algorithm is proposed to achieve the NE. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing algorithms in terms of convergence speed and verify the superiority of the game-theoretic AP selection method compared with some existing approaches.

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a form of distributed massive MIMO aiming to provide massive access and improve spectral efficiency by inheriting favorable properties of traditional massive MIMO, while mitigating detrimental effects such as shadowing and spatially correlated fading. This paper investigates how the throughput of cell-free massive MIMO is affected by non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for the next-generation cellular networks under stochastic access point (AP) and user locations. Thus, we consider homogeneous Poisson point processes (PPPs) to model node locations, while considering a Rayleigh channel with log-distance path loss. The time division duplexing (TDD) mode is employed and uplink channels are estimated autonomously&#x002F;locally at each AP via uplink pilots sent by users. Moreover, while unique pilots are used between NOMA clusters, pilots are reused within each cluster in order to strike a balance between the training overhead and number of clusters. Matched filter based precoding is performed within the downlink based on the estimated channels. The aggregate signal received from all access points is characterized based on the moment generating function and approximated via moment matching. Thereby, the achievable rates for the users are derived, under the consideration of error propagation due to imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC). It is shown that NOMA increases the overall rate under environments with low path loss exponents and networks with high access point densities, while careful power allocation can significantly improve user fairness.

Cell-free (CF) massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) with large number of distributed access points (APs) has emerged as a new paradigm allowing higher macro diversity for randomly distributed users. However, the fronthaul traffic bandwidth between central processing unit and the APs can explode in particular in the uplink, requiring expensive star-topology with point-to-point fronthaul links. To achieve a scalable CF massive MIMO architecture and a cost-effective fronthauling solution, we consider, in this paper, a point-to-multipoint fronthaul topology where (a subset of) the APs share a serial fronthaul link offering a per-user limited fronthaul bandwidth. We develop a novel unified optimization framework for iterative power control and AP scheduling that provides a systematic user-centric solution towards scalable uplink CF massive MIMO. Experimental results show that power control is not sufficient to guarantee the best objective and, therefore, the appropriate association of the users to the APs is required to improve the overall system signal-to-noise ratio. Under the stringent fronthaul bandwidth, the proposed joint optimization framework results in i) significant 5% outage data rate increase ii) near uniform distribution of the served users per APs and, hence, an increased diversity and iii) fast convergence of the algorithm within a few iterations.

In an era where ubiquitous connectivity and escalating data demands are altering the landscape of wireless communications, our paper proposes a pioneering enhancement for the OMNeT++ simulator to support the advanced features of IEEE 802.11ax high efficiency (HE) alongside cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Traditional wireless networks face daunting challenges in sustaining elevated quality of service (QoS), primarily due to fluctuating user densities and signal quality. Cell-free massive MIMO serves as a compelling answer to this predicament by decentralizing the cellular architecture. It eradicates conventional cell boundaries, furnishing uniform QoS regardless of user locations. However, these advancements come at the expense of complex backhaul networks and articulated joint signal processing. The 802.11ax standard, touted for its robustness and efficiency, remains underexplored in this new paradigm. Our research not only dissects the architectural elements and constraints of both 802.11ax and cell-free massive MIMO but also elaborates on the adaptations required to extend OMNeT++ functionalities for these technologies. By doing so, we bridge a crucial gap, enabling the simulator to provide a more precise, detailed, and scalable evaluation of emerging 6G scenarios and directional communications also taking into account the impact of the most known routing protocols such as dynamic source routing (DSR), ad hoc on-demand distance vector routing (AODV), optimized link state routing (OLSR), and dynamic mobile ad hoc network on-demand (DYMO) that were selected for this comparative study. The proposed extensions promise to revolutionize network simulations and lay the foundation for in-depth analyses of wireless systems in complex and dynamic environments. Through extensive simulations, our study demonstrates that cell-free massive MIMO configurations significantly improve network throughput in high-density mobile ad hoc network (MANET) environments, with results indicating an average throughput gain of up to 30% compared with non-cell-free configurations. This improvement highlights the efficacy of cell-free massive MIMO to take advantage of the spatial and frequency multiplexing capabilities inherent in the 802.11ax standard, making it a promising solution for future wireless systems in densely populated areas.

We investigate the feasibility of employing non-orthogonal multiple-access (NOMA) in cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) operating with underlay spectrum-sharing. In our proposed system model, multiple clusters of NOMA-enabled secondary users (SUs) are concurrently served by geographically distributed secondary access-points (S-APs) via conjugate beamforming. The uplink channels are estimated locally at each S-AP via pilots sent by SUs. A set of orthogonal pilots is shared among the secondary and primary clusters to strike a balance between the throughput and training overhead, while enabling massive connectivity in primary and secondary systems. We derive the achievable rates of the secondary system by capturing the adverse effects of inter/intra-cluster interference, primary/secondary pilot contamination, imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC) and partial channel state information (CSI). We propose a transmit power allocation policy for the secondary system to mitigate the detrimental impact of near-far effects by virtue of max-min fairness criterion. Through an achievable rate analysis, we reveal that although the number of concurrently served users can be substantially boosted by employing the proposed system model, the achievable rates are adversely affected due to detection uncertainties with imperfect SIC and statistical CSI at NOMA-enabled SUs.

A user equipment (UE)-assisted hybrid coherent and noncoherent transmission scheme is designed for cell-free massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO), operating in the presence of phase offsets caused by both imperfect radio frequency (RF) chains and asynchronous reception. First, considering the effects of both factors, we derive closed-form spectral efficiency (SE) expressions for hybrid transmission under conjugate beamforming and zero-forcing (ZF) precoders. Based on these expressions, we introduce the concept of superposition gain to clarify the rationality of hybrid transmission. To leverage its advantages, we propose an access point (AP) grouping algorithm and its enhanced version, which groups the serving APs based on downlink (DL) equivalent channel at the UE side. Since the DL equivalent channel incorporates information on both RF and delay phase offsets, hybrid transmission based on this algorithm can simultaneously address both. Additionally, to implement this UE-assisted hybrid transmission with low overhead, we propose a signaling interaction strategy that extends traditional processes by introducing ZF-based DL beamforming pilot transmission for obtaining the DL equivalent channel, along with indication method for reporting the grouping results. Moreover, to further improve performance, a sequential convex approximation power allocation algorithm is proposed for hybrid transmission. Finally, simulations show that UE-assisted hybrid transmission achieves nearly fivefold improvement in 95%-likely SE over coherent transmission in the presence of both RF and delay phase offsets.

This letter studies the performance of an uplink cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system with maximum-ratio combining receiver over Rayleigh fading channel, in which many distributed access points configured with multiple antennas provide services to multiple single-antenna users. For such a system, we derive an exact expression for probability density function (PDF) of individual signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). Due to its complexity for performance evaluation purposes, this PDF of SINR is approximated as a gamma distribution, and the resulting expression is used to obtain the approximate expressions of the coverage probability and the ergodic capacity, respectively. Besides, in order to ensure uniformly good coverage probability and ergodic capacity, a max-min power control algorithm is proposed, which can be formed by solving a geometric programming problem. Numerical results verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis and confirm the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.