Performance Analysis and Location Optimization For Massive MIMO Systems With Circularly Distributed Antennas
Performance Analysis and Location Optimization For Massive MIMO Systems With Circularly Distributed Antennas
Performance Analysis and Location Optimization For Massive MIMO Systems With Circularly Distributed Antennas
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/TWC.2015.2441057, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications
1
AbstractWe analyze the achievable rate of the uplink of a Recently, distributed MIMO systems, or distributed antenna
single-cell multi-user distributed massive multiple-input-multiple- systems, was proposed to further improve the data rate, in
output (MIMO) system. Each user is equipped with single an- which multiple transmit or receive antennas are distributively
tenna and the base station (BS) is equipped with a large number
of distributed antennas. We derive an analytical expression for located to reduce the physical transmission distance between
the asymptotic ergodic achievable rate of the system under the transmitter and the receiver [5][15]. The distributive
zero-forcing (ZF) detector. In particular, we consider circular antennas are assumed to be connected to the central unit
antenna array, where the distributed BS antennas are located via high-bandwidth and low-delay backhaul such as optical
evenly on a circle, and derive an analytical expression and fiber channels. It has been proved that distributed MIMO
closed-form bounds for the achievable rate of an arbitrarily
located user. Subsequently, closed-form bounds on the average outperforms centralized MIMO in outage probability and
achievable rate per user are obtained under the assumption achievable rate. In [5], for a single-cell single-user distributed
that the users are uniformly located. Based on the bounds, we MIMO system with arbitrary antenna topology, the authors
can understand the behavior of the system rate with respect analyzed the outage performance as well as the diversity and
to different parameters and find the optimal location of the multiplexing gains. To maximize the cell averaged ergodic ca-
circular BS antenna array that maximizes the average rate.
Numerical results are provided to assess our analytical results pacity, the authors in [9] proposed a squared distance criterion
and examine the impact of the number and the location of the for antenna location design and derived analytical expressions
BS antennas, the transmit power, and the path-loss exponent for antenna locations under uniform user distribution. In [10],
on system performance. Simulations on multi-cell networks are different radio resource management schemes were compared
also demonstrated. Our work shows that circularly distributed for multi-cell multi-user distributed antenna systems. For a
massive MIMO system largely outperforms centralized massive
MIMO system. single-cell distributed MIMO systems with multiple uniformly
distributed users, upper bounds on the ergodic capacity of one
Index TermsMassive MIMO, distributed MIMO, achievable user and approximate expressions of the sum capacity of the
rate analysis, antenna location optimization.
cell were derived in [11]. In [12], both single-cell and two-cell
distributed MIMO systems with uniformly distributed users
I. I NTRODUCTION were considered. The cells are assumed to be circular and the
distributed base station (BS) antennas have circular layout.
With the demands of the wireless data services nowadays, The locations of the distributive antennas were optimized to
high spectrum efficiency or data rate is undoubtedly an im- maximize lower bounds on the expected signal-to-noise ratio
portant feature of future wireless systems [1], [2]. In order to (SNR) and signal-to-leakage ratio. The resource (including
improve the data rate of wireless systems, various innovative power, subcarrier, and bit) allocation problems in single-cell
ideas have been proposed and investigated. The multiple-input- multi-user distributed antenna systems were investigated in
multiple-output (MIMO) concept is one of the most successful [14]. In [15], for multi-cell networks with multiple remote
ones in recent years [3], [4]. antennas and one multi-antenna user in each cell, the input
covariance matrices for the users were jointly optimized to
Manuscript received August 5, 2014; revised December 28, 2014 and April maximize the achievable ergodic sum rate.
5, 2015; accepted May 26, 2015. This work was supported in part by the
Ericsson, the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) In the above literature of distributed MIMO, single user
of Canada, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. or multiple users with orthogonal channels are assumed, so
61371075, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. there is no inter-user interference. However in current and
61421001, 863 project No.2014AA01A701, and 111 Project of China under
Grant B14010. The review of this paper was coordinated by Dr. Masoud future wireless systems, it is expected to have multiple users
Ardakani. sharing the same time-frequency resource. In such systems, a
A. Yang, C. Xing, Z. Fei, and J. Kuang are with the School of Information user will suffer from the interferences of other users in the
and Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China. (Email:
taylorkingyang@163.com, chengwenxing@ieee.org, feizesong@bit.edu.cn, cell, which can largely degrade the system rate. To conquer
JMKuang@bit.edu.cn). the interference problem, the concept of massive MIMO,
Y. Jing is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineer- where the BS is equipped with a very large number of
ing, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2V4 Canada (e-mail:
yindi@ualberta.ca). antennas (usually of hundreds or higher) was proposed and
*The corresponding author is Chengwen Xing. attracted increasing attention recently [2], [16][27]. With a
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large number of antennas at the BS, according to the law of work differs in transceiver scheme, sum-rate calculation, and
very long vectors, transmission channels for different users assumptions. Thus our results and derivations are fundamen-
are orthogonal to each other. User-interference diminishes and tally different. Compared to [29], [30], the topology of the
very high data rate can be achieved with low complexity distributed BS antennas used in our work is different, as the
signal processing. The ergodic achievable rates of the single- BS in [29] is the combination of several centralized BSs and
cell multi-user massive MIMO uplink with linear detectors, the BS in [30] has centralized antennas. Compared to [31], the
i.e., maximum ratio combining (MRC), zero-forcing (ZF), single-antenna users in this work are non-cooperative, while
minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE), have been derived in the users in [31] cooperate with each other and form a virtual
[21]. The achievable rates of both the uplink and the downlink transmitter with distributed antenna array. Thus our system
of multi-cell multi-user massive MIMO systems with linear model and derivations of achievable rate are different from
precoders and detectors were analyzed in [22]. those in [29][31]. Compared to [32], [33], we focus on the
As the combination of the two promising concepts, massive derivations of achievable rate and the location optimization of
MIMO and distributed MIMO, distributed massive MIMO the distributed BS antennas, while [32] faces the problem of
systems are of great potential in fulfilling the increasing interference control through the use of second-order channel
demands of next generation communication systems [28][33]. statistics and [33] works on the energy efficiency maximization
In [28], for a single-cell network with circularly distributed problem.
BS antennas and single-antenna users under an adaptive user The major contributions of this paper are summarized as
power control, the uplink capacity was analyzed when the follows.
number of users and the number of BS antennas both approach
We provide new analytical expression for the asymptotic
infinity with a fixed ratio. Capacity-maximizing antenna radius
achievable rate of multi-user distributed massive MIMO
was obtained analytically in closed-form when the path-loss
systems with arbitrary but known user location and an-
exponent is 4 and numerically for other path-loss exponent
tenna deployment (see Proposition 1).
values. The authors in [29] focused on an uplink massive
We consider a practical circular antenna layout, where
MIMO system consisting of multiple users and one BS with
antennas of the BS are located evenly on a circle.
several large-scale distributed antenna sets. The deterministic
The asymptotic achievable rate for an arbitrarily located
equivalence of the ergodic sum rate was derived and an
user and two closed-form tight bounds are derived (see
iterative waterfilling algorithm was proposed for finding the
Theorems 1 and 2).
capacity-achieving input covariance matrices. [30] analyzed
Furthermore, for the circular antenna layout, tight closed-
the sum rates of distributed massive MIMO systems, in which
form bounds on the average rate of the cell with uniform
L multiple-antenna radio ports form a virtual transmitter and
user location are obtained (see Theorem 3). These results
jointly transmit data to a centralized multiple-antenna BS. The
can be used to predict the system performance and
capacity and spatial degrees of freedom of distributed massive
understand its behavior with respect to the number of
MIMO system were investigated in [31], where single-antenna
BS antennas, the location of BS antennas, the cell size,
users cooperate in clusters to form distributed antenna arrays.
and user transmit power.
In [32], a simplistic matched filtering scheme and a subspace
Based on the acquired tight bounds, we derive the opti-
projection filtering scheme were investigated in a fixed size
mal radius of the distributed antennas for the maximum
single-cell network, where the BS antennas are assumed uni-
average achievable rate (see Lemma 1), which guides the
formly and randomly located in the cell serving single-antenna
fundamental and practical problem of antenna placement
users. In [33], for networks where one large-scale distributed
for distributed MIMO systems.
BS with a grid antenna layout serving single-antenna users, the
Finally, numerical results are provided to assess our
energy efficiency maximization problem was formulated under
analysis. It is shown that multi-user circularly distributed
per-antenna transmit power and per-user rate constraints. Low
massive MIMO is largely superior to centralized massive
complexity channel-gain-based antenna selection method and
MIMO in uplink achievable rate.
interference-based user clustering method were proposed to
improve the system energy efficiency. The remaining of the paper is organized as follows. The
In this paper, we consider the uplink of a single-cell multi- distributed massive MIMO system model and asymptotic
user distributed massive MIMO system in which the BS, achievable rate analysis for an arbitrary but known user
equipped with a large number of distributed antennas, receives location and antenna deployment are presented in Section II.
information from multiple single-antenna users. We then Asymptotic achievable rate analysis of circularly distributed
consider circular antenna layout, which has a good balance massive MIMO is present in Section III. Location optimization
among the tractability of theoretical analysis, practicality, and of circularly distributed BS antennas is provided in Section
performance. Circular layout has been investigated in [9], [12], IV. Simulation results are presented in Section V. Conclusions
[28], [34][36] and is shown to be an appropriate candidate are drawn in Section VI. Involved proofs are included in the
for distributed antenna deployment. We analyze the asymptotic appendices.
achievable rate of the system under linear ZF detector for Notation: Boldface lowercase letters denote vectors, while
T
arbitrary but known antenna locations and for circular antenna boldface uppercase letters denote matrices. We use () , ()
H
layout. Based on the analysis, the location of the circularly and () to denote the transpose, conjugate, and conjugate
distributed BS antennas is optimized. Compared to [28], our transpose of a matrix or a vector, respectively. For a matrix Z,
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tr(Z) is its trace. The symbol IM denotes the M M identity which is the M 1 channel vector between the kth user and
matrix, while 0M,N denotes the M N matrix whose entries all M BS antennas. Let
are zeros. The symbol E denotes the statistical expectation
operation. The symbol kkF denotes Frobenius norm of a G , g1 gK ,
matrix or a vector. The function log2 () is the base-2 logarithm which is the channel matrix between all K users and all M BS
and ln() is the natural logarithm. antennas. Perfect channel state information (CSI) is assumed
at the BS, that is, the BS knows G precisely.
II. S YSTEM MODEL AND A SYMPTOTIC ACHIEVABLE R ATE The uplink communication is studied, where the K users
A NALYSIS transmit their data in the same time-frequency resource to the
A. Multi-User Distributed Massive MIMO System Model BS. Let x be the K 1 signal vector containing the user
data, where its k-th entry xk is the information symbol of the
We consider a single-cell multi-user distributed massive kth user, normalized as E{|xi |2 } = 1. Symbol P denotes the
MIMO system. In this system, there is one BS equipped with average transmit power of each user, which implies that all
M antennas which are spatially distributed [32], [33]. The the users are assumed to have the same transmit power. The
number of antennas M is assumed to be large, e.g., a few M 1 vector of the received signals at the BS is
hundreds. This is different to the multi-user centralized MIMO
system [16][27], where the BS antennas are centralized y = P Gx + n, (3)
and spatially co-located. Compared with centralized MIMO
where n is the noise vector, whose entries are independent
systems, distributed MIMO systems provide macro-diversity
and identically distributed (i.i.d.) CSCG random variables with
and have enhanced network coverage and capacity, due to
zero-mean and unit-variance, that is, n CN (0M,1 , IM ).
their open and flexible infrastructure [6], [8], [29]. This is also
Assume that the transmit power of each user scales with M
different to systems with distributed BSs, in which several BSs
according to P = Eu /M , where Eu is a finite constant [21].
with multiple antennas cooperate with each other to jointly
Moreover, assume that Eu 1.
transmit or receive the information; and each BS has its own
ZF linear detector is used at the receiver, which has low-
power constraint [37], [38]. We assume that the distributed
complexity and good performance in massive MIMO systems
BS antennas are connected with high capacity backhaul (e.g.,
[21], [22]. ZF separates data streams from different users
optical fiber channels) and have ideal cooperation with each
other. There are K users, each equipped with single antenna. by Hmultiplying
1 H the received signal vector y with A ,
G G G [21]. From (3), we have
We assume that M K, which is necessary in achieving
1 H 1 H
high spectral efficiency in massive MIMO systems [16], [21]. r , Ay = GH G G y = P x + GH G G n.
Denote the channel coefficient between the mth antenna of
the BS and the kth user as gmk . We consider both the path-loss Focusing on the kth element of r, we have,
and small-scale fading as follows [33]:
p r k = P x k + aHk n, (4)
gmk = hmk mk , m = 1, 2, . . . , M, k = 1, 2, . . . , K, (1)
where ak is the kth column of A. Since n CN (0M,1 , IM ),
2
where hmk is the small-scale fading coefficient, which is it can be shown that aH
k n CN (0, kak kF ). The ZF detector
model as a random variable with zero-mean is chosen here for the simplicity of the presentation and our
and unit-variance.
Furthermore, we assume that E |hmk |8 < which is work can be straightforwardly extended to the MMSE linear
satisfied for most popular fading models. Without loss of detector.
generality, Rayleigh fading is adopted in the simulation, where
hmk follows circularly symmetric complex Gaussian (CSCG) B. Asymptotic Achievable Rate Analysis
distribution, i.e., hmk CN (0, 1). hmk s are assumed to be
In this subsection, we analyze the asymptotic achievable
mutually independent. mk models the path-loss, given as
v rate of the multi-user distributed massive MIMO uplink when
d0 M , for a general BS antenna deployment and user
mk = , (2)
dmk location. The number of users K is assumed to be an arbitrary
but finite number. Here we provide the following proposition.
where dmk is the distance between the mth antenna of the BS
and the kth user and d0 is the minimum distance between Proposition 1. The average achievable rate of the kth user
a user and a BS antenna, which exists due to physical in the single-cell multi-user distributed MIMO uplink has the
implementation [7]. Symbol v is the path-loss exponent with following asymptotic behavior:
typical values ranging from 2 to 6, i.e., 2 6. In a.s.
centralized MIMO, d1k = = dM k , thus 1k = = M k , Rk log2 1 + Eu k , as M , (5)
which indicates that the large-scale fading coefficients from a.s.
where denotes the almost sure convergence as M goes to
the kth user to all BS antennas are the same [16], [21]. We infinity and k is defined as
assume no channel shadowing but the derived results can be
M
straightforwardly extended to channels with shadowing. Let 1 X
T k , lim mk . (6)
M M
gk , g1k gM k , m=1
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The single-cell multi-user distributed massive MIMO sys- MIMO system with respect to the cell size and antenna
tem is shown in Figure 1. We consider a circular cell with location. Thus, in what follows, we derive lower and upper
radius R. Circular cell is widely used [12], [34], [39] and has bounds on the achievable rate in closed-form.
been shown to have similar performance to hexagonal cell.
But it enjoys more tractable analysis. The center of the cell is Theorem 2. Define
denoted as O. The distributed BS antennas are located evenly v2 1 !
on a smaller circle with radius r, whose center is the same B,1 ru2 + r2
R (ru ) , log2 1+ Eu dv0 v1 , (15)
as the center of the cell. We denote the location of the mth |ru2 r2 |
BS antenna as Tm . Thus, the length of the segment OTm is RB,2 (ru )
r. Notice that since the BS antennas are evenly located on the v2 1 !
23( 2 1) 2 v2 12
v
circle and the antenna number is assumed to be large, the angle ru2 + r2
, log2 1+ Eu dv0 v1 .
dimension of the antenna location (for example, the angle of |ru2 r2 | (v 1)
the segment OTm and the horizontal axis) has little effect on (16)
the system performance and only the radius of the antenna
circle matters. We denote the location of an arbitrary user as For the circularly distributed massive MIMO system with
U . Let ru be the distance between the user and the cell center, antenna radius r, the asymptotic achievable rate of a user
i.e., the length of the segment OU . at distance ru (where |r ru | d0 ) from the cell center,
denoted as Rasy (ru ), can be bounded as follows
A. Asymptotic Achievable Rate of an Arbitrary User for Cir- B,1
R (ru ) Rasy (ru ) RB,2 (ru ), if 2 4,
cularly Distributed Massive MIMO
RB,1 (ru ) Rasy (ru ) RB,2 (ru ), if 6 4,
The following theorem on the asymptotic achievable rate of
Rasy (ru ) = RB,1 (ru ) = RB,2 (ru ), if = 2 or 4.
an arbitrary user at distance ru for the circularly distributed (17)
massive MIMO system is obtained.
Proof: See Appendix B.
Theorem 1. For the circularly distributed massive MIMO Theorem 2 provides both lower and upper bounds on the
system with antenna radius r, the ergodic achievable rate of achievable rate. When v 4, RB,1 (ru ) is a lower bound
the user at distance ru (where |r ru | d0 ) from the cell and RB,2 (ru ) is an upper bound; when v 4, RB,1 (ru )
center has the following asymptotic behavior: is an upper bound and RB,2 (ru ) is a lower bound. When
a.s.
R(ru ) Rasy (ru ) , log2 (1 + Eu I0 ) , as M , (12) = 2, 4, RB,1 (ru ) and RB,2 (ru ) are the same and equal
the achievable rate of the user. Moreover, it is evident that
where the bounds in Theorem 2 are in closed-form. We note that the
2 ( 2 ) 2 ( v2 21 )
3 v 1
v r2 + ru2 coefficient in (16) only depends on , the
I0 (ru ) , dv0 r2 ru2 2 P v2 1 , (13) (v1)
|r2 ru2 | path-loss exponent and can be easily calculated offline.
with P () the Legendre function [42]. To justify the tightness of the two closed-form bounds, we
For = 2, 4, 6, closed-form expressions for the achievable analyze their difference as follows:
rate can be obtained as follows: B,1
R (ru ) RB,2 (ru )
R(ru )
v
2 2 1
v (ru +r )
2
a.s. 1 + Eu d0 |r2 r2 |v1
Rasy (ru )
= log2 u
3( 1)
v
log 1 + E d v 1
, if v = 2, (r
v
2 +r 2 ) 2 1 2 2 2 v1
( )
2
u 0 |r 2 r 2 | 1 + Eu dv0 |ru2 r2 |v1 (v1)
2 2
2
u
2
u
log2 1 + Eu dv0 r2 +r2u 3 , if v = 4,
23( 2 1) 2 v2 12 (a)
v
|rru |
, 2 +r 2 2 (14) log2 < 0.6,
3
r u 1 (v 1)
1 + Eu dv0 r r
2 2
u , if v = 6.
log 2 2 2 3
2|r ru |
where Inequality (a) in the above derivation is obtained by
Proof: See Appendix A. numerical calculations for 2 v 6. This shows that the two
In this theorem, to facilitate the presentation, we introduce bounds are close to each other with less than 0.6 bits/s/Hz
a new notation, Rasy for the asymptotic ergodic achiev- difference. The difference is negligible for massive MIMO
able systems when Eu = P M 1. Thus, either RB,1 (ru ) or
rate of a user when M . Note that Pa (b) =
F a, a + 1; 1; 1b 2 , where F (, ; ; ) is the Gauss hyper- RB,2 (ru ) can function as a tight closed-form approximation
geometric function [42]. Many softwares for scientific com- of the achievable rate. Our simulation results in Section V also
putations such as Matlab have this function. Thus the result justify the tightness of the bounds.
in (12-13) of Theorem 1 can be easily calculated. However, Since both bounds RB,1 (ru ) and RB,2 (ru ) increase in
due to the special function, for 6= 2, 4, 6, the achievable log2 Eu and Eu = P M , where P is the transmit power and
rate is not in closed-form and little insight can be obtained on M is the number of BS antennas, the user achievable rate is
the performance behavior of the circularly distributed massive proved to increase in log2 P and log2 M .
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B. Asymptotic Average Achievable Rate of the Cell for Circu- By using (15) in Theorem 2,
larly Distributed Massive MIMO B,1
Rtemp
In the previous subsection, we have analyzed the asymptotic Z v2 1 !
rate of an arbitrarily located user in the cell. In this subsection, 2 ru2 + r2
= 2 ru log2 1+ Eu dv0 v1 d(ru )
we derive the asymptotic average rate of a user in the cell, R 4rd0 |ru2 r2 |
which indicates the average experience of user service. The Z 2 v !
2 2 1
users are assumed to be randomly and uniformly located [12], 2 v ru + r
2 ru log2 Eu d 0 v1 d(ru ), (24)
[41]. Since the minimum distance between a user and a BS R 4rd0 |ru2 r2 |
antenna is d0 , the users can only locate inside the circle with
where the approximation follows log(1 + x) log x for
radius r d0 or outside the circle with radius r + d0 , The area
2 2 x 1. We can use this approximation since Eu 1. From
of which is (r d0 ) + R2 (r + d0 ) = R2 4rd0 .
the definition of and by using change of variable for the
Recall that ru denotes the users distance to the cell center.
integration,
Define , [0, r d0 ] [r + d0 , R], which is the range for ru ,
i.e., ru . The probability density function of ru is [41] B,1
Rtemp
("Z Z #
2 (rd0 )2 R2
fru (x) = R2 4rd0 x x . (18) 1
0 otherwise 2 + log2 (Eu dv0 ) dt
R 4rd0 0 (r+d0 )2
" #
The angle of the users location (to the horizonal axis) is v Z (rd0 )2 Z R2
uniformly distributed on [0, 2). + 1 + log2 t + r2 dt
2 0 (r+d0 )2
The following theorem on the asymptotic average achiev- "Z # )
(rd0 ) 2 Z R2
able rate per user is proved.
(v 1) + log2 t r dt .
2
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Thus, either bound can be used as a tight approximation of circular BS antenna array can be designed for the maximum
Rasy with the error being less than 0.6 bits/s/Hz. The error is average achievable rate for the distributed massive MIMO
negligible when Eu = P M 1. The tightness of the bounds system.
will also be justified by our simulation results in Section V. From (28) we have ropt /R = (t0 + 1)1/2 . Thus, the ratio
of the antenna radius and the cell radius depends on the path-
IV. L OCATION O PTIMIZATION OF THE C IRCULAR BS loss exponent v only and is independent of the transmit power
A NTENNA A RRAY P (or Eu ) and the BS antennas size M . This is very appealing
In the previous section, the ergodic achievable rate of an in wireless network designs and implementation. For example,
arbitrarily located user and the average achievable rate per the improvement of the hardware in distributed MIMO, such
user of the cell for uniformly located users are derived when as increasing the number of the distributed antennas, will not
M . We can see from the results that the radius of affect the optimal location of the distributive antennas. For a
the distributed BS antennas r largely affects the achievable given v value, the radius of the circular BS antennas array
rate. In this section, we turn to derive the optimal radius of should increases linearly in the cell radius R.
the circularly distributed BS antenna array to maximize the Moreover, for any v [2, 6], we can show that ropt /R
average achievable rate of the cell, which is one of the most [0.7, 0.78] via straightforward numerical calculations. On one
important measures of wireless system performance. hand, the optimal ropt /R value is far away from the centralized
In Theorem 3, both the upper and lower bounds, RB,1 and massive MIMO case, where r/R = 0. On the other hand,
B,2
R , are derived for the average achievable rate per user. The for different v values within the practical range (v [2, 6]),
bounds are in closed-form and shown to be close to each other. ropt /R has small change. Actually, for any v [2, 6], our
Thus, in the radius optimization, we aim at maximizing RB,1 . simulation shows that setting the radius of the circular antenna
The same result can be obtained if RB,2 is used since the array as r = 0.75R induces less than 5% loss in the average
difference RB,2 RB,1 only depends on v and is independent achievable rate compared to the optimal radius. This result is
of r, the radius of the circular antenna array. useful in further simplifying the practical design of circularly
distributed massive MIMO systems. Also, it can be shown that
Lemma 1. The radius of the circular BS antenna array for ropt /R is an increasing function of v. Thus, as the path-loss is
the distributed massive MIMO system that maximizes RB,1 is: more severe, antennas should be installed further away from
s the cell center for the maximum average rate.
R2
ropt = , (28)
t0 + 1
V. N UMERICAL RESULTS
where t0 is the solution of the following equation: In this section, we present numerical results to show the
x
2
3+ v2
+ 2x
2
2+ v2
1 = 0. (29) performance of the distributed massive MIMO system with
circular BS antenna array and justify the accuracy of our
B,1
Proof: The derivative of R defined in (19) with respect theoretical results. The impacts of different parameters, such
to r can be calculated to be: as the number and the location of the distributed BS antennas,
dRB1 the user transmit power, and the path-loss exponent, on the
dr achievable rate are also investigated. We also simulate multi-
2 2
rlog2 e R R cell systems to understand the effects of inter-cell interference
= (v 2) ln + 1 +(2v 2)ln 1 . and pilot contamination. In the simulations, the cell radius is
R2 r2 r2
(30) set as R = 1000 meters. For each cell, there is a massive BS
with M circularly distributed antennas located on a circle of
By making dRB1 /dr zero, we have radius r and K users. The users have the same transmit power,
v
2 v/21 2 which is set to be rmid Eu /M where rmid = R/2 = 500
R v1
R meters. So, if a user is located 500 meters away from a BS
+ 1 1 = 1. (31)
r2 r2 antenna, the average received SNR of the antenna from the
v
After replacing R2 /r2 1 with t and rearranging the expres- user is P = Eu /M . The normalization with rmid in the
sion in (31), we obtain (29). transmit power does not affect the behavior of the simulation
Next we show that the solution of (31), denoted as curves but only affects the position of the curves on the Eu -
ropt , is the maximum of RB1 . From (30), we can see axis. The minimum distance between a BS antenna and a user
1 B is d0 = 1. The small-scale channel fading hmk is generated
that rlog 2e dR 1
is a decreasing function of r. Thus
R2
1 B
dr
1 B as CSCG with zero-mean and unit-variance, thus Rayleigh
rlog2 e dR 1
> 0 when r < r and rlog2 e dR 1 fading.
R 2 dr opt R 2 dr <
0 when r > ropt . Notice that rlog R2
2e
> 0. Thus we have
dR /dr > 0 when r < ropt and dRB1 /dr < 0 when
B1 A. Achievable Rate of an Arbitrarily Located User
r > ropt . This ends the proof. We first study the simulated achievable rate of an arbitrarily
The equation in (29) only depends on the path-loss exponent located user and compare with the derived asymptotic ana-
v and can be easily solved offline by software such as Matlab. lytical result in (12-13), as well as the closed-form bounds
By using the result in Lemma 1, the radius of the distributed RB,1 (ru ) in (15) and RB,2 (ru ) in (16). We set r = 500
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18
24 Simulation Simulation, distributed MIMO
12 8
Eu = 22dB
v= 3.5
10
v=2.5 6
8 2 3
0 200 400 600 800 1000 10 10
The distance between the user and the cell center ru Number of BS antennas (M)
Fig. 3. The average ergodic achievable rate of the cell for different M where
Fig. 2. Comparison of the analytical expressions and bounds of the ergodic K = 9, and v = 3.6. For circularly distributed MIMO, r = 760 meters; and
achievable rate of circularly distributed massive MIMO with simulation, where for centralized MIMO, r = 0.
M = 150, K = 9, r = 500 meters, and Eu = 31.8dB.
14
meters, M = 150 and Eu = 31.8dB. With this setting, we Average ergodic achievable rate of the cell
have P = 10dB. Figure 2 shows the achievable rate for 12
We can see from the figure that the derived analytical ex-
pression in (12-13) accurately predict the simulated achievable 8
rate. The derived closed-form bounds in (15) and (16) are very
close to the simulated and numerically calculated achievable 6
rates. The figure also shows that RB,1 (ru ) is a lower bound
Simulation, distributed MIMO
and RB,2 (ru ) is an upper bound when v 4, while RB,1 (ru ) 4
Simulation, centralized MIMO
is an upper bound and RB,2 (ru ) is a lower bound when v 4,
which confirm our results in (17). Furthermore, Figure 2 shows 2 Bound RB,1 in (19)
that the achievable rate is higher for smaller distance between Bound RB,2 in (20)
the user distance ru and the radius of the circular BS antenna 0
10 15 20 25 30
array r. For either ru > r or ru < r, the achievable rate is a Eu (dB)
concave function of ru .
Fig. 4. The average ergodic achievable rate of the cell for different Eu
where M = 100, K = 9, and v = 3.6. For circularly distributed MIMO,
B. Average Achievable Rate of the Cell r = 760 meters; and for centralized MIMO, r = 0.
In Figure 3 and Figure 4, we show the average achievable
rate per user of the cell, and compare with the derived
bounds RB,1 in (19) and RB,2 in (20), as well as the rate value. For example, increasing Eu from 14dB to 18dB brings
of centralized massive MIMO. We set r = 760 meters for the an achievable rate advantage of about 17% at M = 100.
circularly distributed MIMO and r = 0 for centralized massive Moreover, the figures show that circularly distributed MIMO
MIMO. We assume a practical urban scenario with the path- system largely outperforms the centralized one. For example,
loss exponent v = 3.6 [43]. The user locations are randomly at M = 100 and Eu = 30dB, it achieves about 39% higher
generated to be uniformly distributed in the cell. rate.
It can be seen from both figures that the simulated achiev-
able rates and the derived closed-form bounds have tight C. Impact of the Radius of the Circular BS Antenna Array
match, especially for large values of M and Eu . When M in- Next, we show the impact of the radius of the circular BS
creases, the average achievable rate of the cell keeps a constant antenna array, r, on the average achievable rate of the cell.
value for a fixed Eu , since the user transmit power P decreases Notice that the r = 0 case corresponds to the centralized
with M for a fixed Eu . This shows that in the circularly massive MIMO system, where the BS antennas are located
distributed massive MIMO system, in achieving a given rate at the center of the cell.
level, the required user transmission power decreases with M . Figure 5 plots the simulated average rate of the cell and
The average achievable rate increases with Eu for a fixed M the derived bounds with respect to different r for three cases:
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15 12
14
Average ergodic achievable rate of the cell
12
11 8
10
6
9 M =100, Eu =30dB
8
4
7 Simulation
M =100, Eu =25dB Singlecell, perfect CSI
6 Bound RB,1 in (19)
2 Multicell, perfect CSI
5 Bound RB,2 in (20) Multicell, pilot contamination
4
0 200 400 600 800 1000 0
Radius of the distributed antennas (r) 0 200 400 600 800 1000
Radius of the distributed antennas (r)
Fig. 5. The average ergodic achievable rate of the cell for different r, where
K = 9 and v = 3.6. Fig. 7. The average achievable rates of single- and 7-cell systems for different
r, where Eu = 26.8dB, M = 150, K = 9, and v = 3.6.
13
Optimal r in this paper
Optimal r in [9] for all Eu values. The average rate gain brought by the optimal
Average ergodic achievable rate of the cell
12 Optimal r in [12] radius in this paper is about 5% for Eu = 14dB and v = 5.4.
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14
Centralized MIMO, multicell, pilot contamination exponent, and the transmit power can be understood. We also
12 derived tight closed-form bounds on the average achievable
10
rate per user assuming that users are randomly located in
Eu = 30dB the cell, from which the optimal radius of the distributed BS
8 antenna array that maximizes the average rate was derived.
Numerical results were illustrated to justify our analytical
6
results. Our work has shown that circularly distributed massive
4 MIMO largely outperforms centralized massive MIMO. Our
derived results can assist infrastructure providers in solving
2 Eu = 10dB
the fundamental problems of performance measurement and
0 1 antennas placement for distributed massive MIMO systems in
10 10
2
10
3
practice.
Number of BS antennas (M)
A PPENDIX A
Fig. 8. The average achievable rates of single- and 7-cell systems for different P ROOF OF T HEOREM 3
M , where K = 9, r = 750 and v = 3.6.
As shown in Figure 1, we denote the angle of the segments
OTm (where Tm is the location of the mth BS antenna and
R, the cell radius) but the performance degradation diminishes O is the cell center) and OU (where U is the location of the
as the number of BS antennas M increases (as is shown in user) as m . The distance between TM and U , denoted as
Figure 8). Pilot contamination brings further rate reduction Dm , can be expressed as
especially when r is small. Compared with centralized massive q
2
MIMO (where r = 0) with multi-cell and pilot contamination, Dm = r2 sin2 m + (r cos m ru ) . (32)
circularly distributed massive MIMO has significantly better Without loss of generality, we assume that 1 = 0 and the
performance when the radius is properly designed (e.g., r evenly circularly distributed BS antennas are labeled
m1such that
750 meters). For example, when M = 100 and Eu = 30dB, m = m1 2 for 1 m bM/2c and =
M m M 1 2
it achieves about 76% higher rate. Therefore, our conclusion for dM/2e m M . Let , 2/M .
that circularly distributed massive MIMO largely outperforms From Equations (2) and (32),
centralized massive MIMO is also valid in multi-cell networks, M
even though with the circular BS antenna layout, the BS 1 X
mk
antennas of adjacent cells are much closer to each other. This is M m=1
due to the large-scale of the BS antenna array, which mitigates M
user-interference. dv0 X 1
= v
In addition, from Figure 7, we can see that the achievable M m=1 Dm
rates for all three cases (for single-cell network and 7-cell
dv0 X h 2 2 i v2
M
2
network) have similar behaviour with respect to the antenna = r sin m + (r cos m ru )
radius r. The optimal radii for the three cases are 0.75R, M m=1
0.7R, and 0.7R, respectively. If we use the optimal radius dv0 1 X h 2 2 i v2
M
2
for the single-cell network, which is 0.75R, in the 7-cell = r sin m +(r cos m ru ) (33)
M m=1
network, the induced rate reduction due to the ignorance of
v Z h i v2
inter-cell interference and pilot contamination is less than 2% M d0 2
r2 sin2 + (r cos ru ) d. (34)
(by comparing the rates at r = 750 and r = 700). Thus, our 2
results for single-cell systems can still be valuable for multi- Employing [44, 2.5.16.38], we have, from (34),
cell systems. 2
M
1 X M v 2 v
2 2 v r + ru2
mk d0 r ru P 2 1 .
VI. C ONCLUSIONS M m=1 |r2 ru2 |
In this paper, we have considered the uplink of a single-cell (35)
multi-user distributed massive MIMO system, where the BS By using (35) in (5), Equation (12) can be proved. Equa-
equipped with a large number of distributed antennas receives tion (14) can be subsequently obtained by using [42, 8.912].
information from multiple users each equipped with single To further illuminate the asymptotic result in (34), we
antenna. The ZF detection is used at the BS. For circularly dis- investigate the difference between (34) and (33). To help the
tributed BS antennas, we derived analytical expressions of the presentation, we use the following notation:
achievable rate of an arbitrarily located user and two closed- h i v2
2
form expressions that bound the rate from both sides. The f () , r2 sin2 + (r cos ru ) .
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Ang Yang received the B.S. degree in Electronic Jingming Kuang received the B.S. and M.S. degree
Engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology in Information and Signal Processing at Beijing
(BIT), Beijing, China in 2009. He is currently Institute of Technology (BIT), Beijing, China, in
working toward the Ph.D. degree with the Research 1966 and 1981, respectively, and Ph.D. degree in
Institute of Communication Technology (RICT) of Electrical Engineering from Technical University
BIT. Since October 2012, he has been with the of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, in 1988. He has been
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, a Professor with the School of Information and
University of Alberta, Canada, where he is a visiting Electronics, BIT since 1989. He is the founder of
Ph.D. student under the supervision of Prof. Yindi BIT-Ericsson Research Center of Digital Communi-
Jing. His research interests are in the general area cations, which was built in 1999. From Aug. 1993
of multivariate statistics, MIMO systems, network to Aug. 2007, he has been the vice-president and
coding, and cooperative communications. the president of BIT. His research interests include theory and techniques of
wireless communication and digital signal processing.
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