TDD and FDD Massive MIMO: Channel Coherence and Operation Region

Abstract:
We analyze the achievable rates of time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD) operations in massive MIMO systems depending on the coherence time and bandwidth of the underlying channel. In particular, an interlaced FDD (IFDD) scheme is considered due to both its simplicity and low pilot overhead. We establish the operational region of TDD and IFDD schemes for channels with different properties in the time and frequency domain. We prove that IFDD shall be preferred when the channel has large coherence bandwidth while TDD performs better if the channel has large coherence time. Furthermore, we evaluate the performance of TDD and IFDD systems for time-varying and frequency-selective channels via numerical simulations, showing that IFDD is an attractive alternative in high speed scenarios.