On the Uplink Detection Performance in MU-MIMO Broadband Systems with a Large Number of BS Antennas

Inhalt:
This paper deals with Cyclic-Prefix (CP)- assisted uplink transmission - Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)-based or Single Carrier (SC)/Frequency Domain Equalization (FDE)-based - within a Multi-User (MU)-Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) system where a large number of Base Station (BS) antennas is adopted. In this context, either a Minimum Mean-Squared Error (MMSE) optimum linear detection or reducedcomplexity linear detection techniques are considered. Regarding performance evaluation by simulation, appropriate semi-analytical methods are proposed, and their accuracy is assessed under the assumptions of perfect power control and perfect channel estimation. This paper includes a detailed evaluation of Bit Error Rate (BER) performances for uncoded 4-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) schemes - with both OFDM and SC/FDE - and a MU-MIMO channel with uncorrelated Rayleigh fading. The accuracy of performance results obtained through the semi-analytical simulation methods is assessed by means of parallel conventional Monte Carlo simulations. The performance results are discussed in detail, with the help of selected performance bounds, and we also emphasize the achievable ”massive MIMO” effects, even for the reduced-complexity detection techniques, provided that the number of BS antennas is much higher than the number of antennas which are jointly employed in the terminals of the multiple autonomous users. Appropriate ”SC/FDE vs OFDM” comparisons are also included in this discussion of performance results.