Showing papers by "Thomas L. Marzetta published in 2014"

Massive MIMO for next generation wireless systems

Abstract: Multi-user MIMO offers big advantages over conventional point-to-point MIMO: it works with cheap single-antenna terminals, a rich scattering environment is not required, and resource allocation is simplified because every active terminal utilizes all of the time-frequency bins. However, multi-user MIMO, as originally envisioned, with roughly equal numbers of service antennas and terminals and frequency-division duplex operation, is not a scalable technology. Massive MIMO (also known as large-scale antenna systems, very large MIMO, hyper MIMO, full-dimension MIMO, and ARGOS) makes a clean break with current practice through the use of a large excess of service antennas over active terminals and time-division duplex operation. Extra antennas help by focusing energy into ever smaller regions of space to bring huge improvements in throughput and radiated energy efficiency. Other benefits of massive MIMO include extensive use of inexpensive low-power components, reduced latency, simplification of the MAC layer, and robustness against intentional jamming. The anticipated throughput depends on the propagation environment providing asymptotically orthogonal channels to the terminals, but so far experiments have not disclosed any limitations in this regard. While massive MIMO renders many traditional research problems irrelevant, it uncovers entirely new problems that urgently need attention: the challenge of making many low-cost low-precision components that work effectively together, acquisition and synchronization for newly joined terminals, the exploitation of extra degrees of freedom provided by the excess of service antennas, reducing internal power consumption to achieve total energy efficiency reductions, and finding new deployment scenarios. This article presents an overview of the massive MIMO concept and contemporary research on the topic.

Five disruptive technology directions for 5G

Abstract: New research directions will lead to fundamental changes in the design of future fifth generation (5G) cellular networks. This article describes five technologies that could lead to both architectural and component disruptive design changes: device-centric architectures, millimeter wave, massive MIMO, smarter devices, and native support for machine-to-machine communications. The key ideas for each technology are described, along with their potential impact on 5G and the research challenges that remain.

Aspects of favorable propagation in Massive MIMO

Abstract: Favorable propagation, defined as mutual orthogonality among the vector-valued channels to the terminals, is one of the key properties of the radio channel that is exploited in Massive MIMO. However, there has been little work that studies this topic in detail. In this paper, we first show that favorable propagation offers the most desirable scenario in terms of maximizing the sum-capacity. One useful proxy for whether propagation is favorable or not is the channel condition number. However, this proxy is not good for the case where the norms of the channel vectors are not equal. For this case, to evaluate how favorable the propagation offered by the channel is, we propose a “distance from favorable propagation” measure, which is the gap between the sum-capacity and the maximum capacity obtained under favorable propagation. Secondly, we examine how favorable the channels can be for two extreme scenarios: i.i.d. Rayleigh fading and uniform random line-of-sight (UR-LoS). Both environments offer (nearly) favorable propagation. Furthermore, to analyze the UR-LoS model, we propose an urns-and-balls model. This model is simple and explains the singular value spread characteristic of the UR-LoS model well.

A Macro Cellular Wireless Network with Uniformly High User Throughputs

Abstract: Traditional macro-cellular wireless networks are not capable of delivering even throughputs to all the users due to large variations in slow fading and inter-cell and inter-user interferences, and the throughputs for cell edge users are necessarily sacrificed to achieve an acceptable level of cell spectral efficiency. We show that this is not the case for large-scale antenna systems (LSAS, also known as Massive MIMO). Specifically, we show that by means of its superior beamforming and frequency response flattening capabilities, simple noncooperative uplink and downlink power controls can be devised for an LSAS macro-cellular wireless network to provide intra-cell equalized, multi-Mbps throughputs to all users. Compared with current LTE, a 64-antenna LSAS can provide cell edge throughputs with at least a ten-fold increase in the uplink and a significant gain in the downlink, and at the same time provide a total spectral efficiency per cell that quintuples in the uplink and triples in the downlink.

Aspects of Favorable Propagation in Massive MIMO

Abstract: Favorable propagation, defined as mutual orthogonality among the vector-valued channels to the terminals, is one of the key properties of the radio channel that is exploited in Massive MIMO. However, there has been little work that studies this topic in detail. In this paper, we first show that favorable propagation offers the most desirable scenario in terms of maximizing the sum-capacity. One useful proxy for whether propagation is favorable or not is the channel condition number. However, this proxy is not good for the case where the norms of the channel vectors may not be equal. For this case, to evaluate how favorable the propagation offered by the channel is, we propose a ``distance from favorable propagation'' measure, which is the gap between the sum-capacity and the maximum capacity obtained under favorable propagation. Secondly, we examine how favorable the channels can be for two extreme scenarios: i.i.d. Rayleigh fading and uniform random line-of-sight (UR-LoS). Both environments offer (nearly) favorable propagation. Furthermore, to analyze the UR-LoS model, we propose an urns-and-balls model. This model is simple and explains the singular value spread characteristic of the UR-LoS model well.

Interference Reduction in Multi-Cell Massive MIMO Systems I: Large-Scale Fading Precoding and Decoding

Abstract: A wireless massive MIMO system entails a large number (tens or hundreds) of base station antennas serving a much smaller number of users, with large gains in spectral-efficiency and energy-efficiency compared with conventional MIMO technology. Until recently it was believed that in multi-cellular massive MIMO system, even in the asymptotic regime, as the number of service antennas tends to infinity, the performance is limited by directed inter-cellular interference. This interference results from unavoidable re-use of reverse-link training sequences (pilot contamination) by users in different cells. We devise a new concept that leads to the effective elimination of inter-cell interference in massive MIMO systems. This is achieved by outer multi-cellular precoding, which we call Large-Scale Fading Precoding (LSFP). The main idea of LSFP is that each base station linearly combines messages aimed to users from different cells that re-use the same training sequence. Crucially, the combining coefficients depend only on the slow-fading coefficients between the users and the base stations. Each base station independently transmits its LSFP-combined symbols using conventional linear precoding that is based on estimated fast-fading coefficients. Further, we derive estimates for downlink and uplink SINRs and capacity lower bounds for the case of massive MIMO systems with LSFP and a finite number of base station antennas.

A large scale antenna system with overlaying small cells

Abstract: A large-scale antenna system (LSAS) base station transmits one or more first signals on one or more first channels corresponding to one or more first access terminals associated with the LSAS base station concurrently with nulling one or more second channels corresponding to one or more second access terminals associated with one or more small cells. The first signal(s) is/are transmitted synchronously with the second signal (s) transmitted by the small cell(s).

Uplink interference reduction in Large Scale Antenna Systems.

Abstract: A massive MIMO system entails a large number (tens or hundreds) of base station antennas serving a much smaller number of terminals. These systems demonstrate large gains in spectral and energy efficiency compared with the conventional MIMO technology. As the number of antennas grows, the performance of a massive MIMO system gets limited by the interference caused by pilot contamination. Ashikhmin and Marzetta proposed (under the name of Pilot Contamination Precoding) large scale fading precoding (LSFP) and large scale fading decoding (LSFD) based on limited cooperation between base stations. They showed that zero-forcing LSFP and LSFD eliminate pilot contamination entirely and lead to an infinite throughput as the number of antennas grows. In this paper, we focus on the uplink and show that even in the case of a finite number of base station antennas, LSFD yields a very large performance gain. In particular, one of our algorithms gives a more than 140 fold increase in the 5% outage data transmission rate! We show that the performance can be improved further by optimizing the transmission powers of the users. Finally, we present decentralized LSFD that requires limited cooperation only between neighboring cells.

Interference Reduction in Multi-Cell Massive MIMO Systems II: Downlink Analysis for a Finite Number of Antennas

Abstract: Sharing global channel information at base stations (BSs) is commonly assumed for downlink multi-cell precoding. In the context of massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems where each BS is equipped with a large number of antennas, sharing instant fading channel coefficients consumes a large amount of resource. To consider practically implementable methods, we study in this paper interference reduction based on precoding using the large-scale fading coefficients that depend on the path-loss model and are independent of a specific antenna. We focus on the downlink multi-cell precoding designs when each BS is equipped with a practically finite number of antennas. In this operation regime, pilot contamination is not the dominant source of interference, and mitigation of all types of interference is required. This paper uses an optimization approach to design precoding methods for equal qualities of service (QoS) to all users in the network, i.e.,maximizing the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs) among all users. The formulated optimization is proved to be quasi-convex, and can be solved optimally. We also propose low-complexity suboptimal algorithms through uplink and downlink duality. Simulation results show that the proposed precoding methods improve 5% outage rate for more than 10 3 times, compared to other known interference mitigation techniques.

Dual-Tier Wireless Communication System

Abstract: Systems and methods for communicating data over a dual-tier wireless communication system are provided. A dual-tier wireless communication system comprises an upper tier cell-free large-scale antenna system including a plurality of service-antennas distributed in a designated coverage area for providing wireless access service to mobile terminals, and a lower tier of one or more concentrated large-scale antenna system arrays arranged within a plurality of cells of the designated coverage area for providing backhaul service to the plurality of service-antennas. The upper tier and the lower tier operate in disjoint frequency bands with respect to each other.

Non-cooperative power control for large-scale antenna systems

Abstract: A base station servicing a cell of a cellular network provides power control of a cell independent of any other cell in the network. For downlink power control, the base station transmits information at its full power and applies a downlink power control factor to each downlink channel to equalize downlink throughputs of the mobile terminals in the cell. For uplink power control, the base station transmits instructions to have the uplink channel with the worst channel condition to transmit at its full power and the other uplink channels to transmit at that same full power. Each transmission is scaled by a corresponding uplink power control factor such that uplink throughputs for the mobile terminals in the cell are equalized. The base station applies an approximation of a rigorous capacity lower bound algorithm using propagation channel conditions and channel parameters to calculate the uplink and downlink power control factors.

Distributed generation of slow-fading post-coding vectors for lsas communication networks and the like

Abstract: In one embodiment, a cellular wireless communications network, such as a large-scale antenna system (LSAS) network, having multiple base stations is logically divided into overlapping, virtual, truncated networks, where each base station functions as the master of a different truncated network, and each truncated network also has one or more base stations that function as slaves to that master base station. Each master base station generates estimated slow-fading coefficients and a slow-fading post-coding (SFP) vector based only on the wireless units current located within its truncated network. In particular, to generate the SFP vector, the master collects estimated slow-fading coefficients and estimated uplink data symbols from its slaves. The master uses the SFP vector to update its own estimated uplink data symbols for the wireless units currently located within its own cell.

Automatic operation directional loudspeaker and operation method thereof

Abstract: PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a directional acoustic system, a method for transmitting sound to a spatial place determined by gazing of a user, and directional communication system.SOLUTION: A directional acoustic system of an embodiment includes: a direction sensor configured to create data to determine a direction where the attention of a user is pointed to; a microphone configured to generate an output signal indicating sound received there; a loudspeaker configured to convert a directed sound signal into a directed sound; and an acoustic processor that is configured to be connected with the direction sensor, microphone, and loudspeaker and that is configured to convert an output signal into a directed sound signal and to transmit the sound directed by means of the loudspeaker to a spatial place related to that direction. The direction sensor uses a pointing device to indicate the spatial place on the basis of the movement of the pointing device by the user.