This application is the national phase entry of International Application No. PCT/CN2017/106351, filed on Oct. 16, 2017, which is based upon and claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No. 201710766951.3, filed on Aug. 31, 2017, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The present invention belongs to the technical field of communications, and relates to massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) robust precoding transmission method.
In order to improve the user experience and address the challenges posed by the rapid growth of wireless data service and the requirements of new services, the next-generation mobile networks need to support high quality, high transmission rate, high mobility, high user density, low latency, and other scenarios. By equipping a large-scale antenna array on a base station (BS), massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) greatly increases the system capacity, and is one of the key technologies for the next-generation wireless networks. It has been also a hot research topic in recent years.
A massive MIMO precoding transmission method is related to whether the potential performance gain provided by massive MIMO can be achieved. Precoders can be divided into linear precoders and non-linear precoders. The non-linear precoders can achieve near-optimal performance, but their complexity is too high. Currently, most works in the massive MIMO literature focus on the linear precoders, and most of them are linear precoders for single-antenna users. For a massive MIMO downlink with single antenna users, the linear precoder can achieve the near-optimal performance when the number of transmit antennas is much greater than the number of receive antennas. The linear precoders commonly used in the literature includes the match filter (MF) precoder and the regularized zero forcing (RZF) precoder.
Multi-antenna equipment has been adopted by user terminals in mobile communication systems at present. In next-generation wireless networks, multi-antenna users will inevitably continue to exist. Therefore, researches on massive MIMO precoder designs for the multi-antenna users cannot be avoided. The complexity of non-linear precoders is extremely high, and currently cannot be applied to the massive MIMO. Meanwhile, simple linear precoders, such as the MF precoder and the RZF precoder, cannot achieve the near-optimal performance when the number of transmitting antennas at the BS is limited. To achieve the near-optimal performance, linear precoders obtained by maximizing weighted sum-rate needs to be considered. The precoder design depends on channel state information (CSI) that can be acquired by the BS. When the BS has the perfect CSI, an iterative weighted minimum mean square error (WMMSE) precoding method widely used in a traditional multi-user MIMO system can be directly extended to the massive MIMO system. The method can converge to a local optimal solution for the maximum weighted sum-rate optimization problems. When the BS has statistical CSI, there are beam division multiple access (BDMA) transmission methods and joint spatial division and multiplexing (JSDM) transmission methods in the literature. Specifically, both the methods work when the statistical CSI has a zero mean.
In practical massive MIMO systems, perfect CSI at the BS are usually not available due to channel estimation errors, channel aging and other factors. Therefore, the iterative WMMSE algorithm based on the perfect CSI cannot be used in practical systems. To meet the needs that the users in practical systems are possibly in different moving speeds, user channel information obtained by the BS needs to be modeled as a jointly correlated model with a known channel mean and variance. Since the CSI obtained by the BS has both channel mean and channel variance information, neither the BDMA transmission method nor the JSDM method can be applied.
For the deficiencies in the prior art, the present invention discloses a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) robust precoding transmission method, which can solve the applicability problem of a massive MIMO technology under various typical scenarios.
In order to achieve the above objective, the present invention provides the following technical solution.
Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following advantages and beneficial effects.
A massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) robust precoding transmission method under imperfect channel state information (CSI), comprising: By using the pilot signals and a priori statistical channel models, a base station (BS) or transmitting apparatus acquires a posteriori statistical channel models of the mobile terminals or receiving apparatuses, which include channel mean or expected value and channel variance information; and the BS or transmitting apparatus performs robust precoding transmission, by using the a posteriori statistical channel models including the channel mean or expected value and the channel variance information.
As an improvement of the present invention, the a priori statistical correlation channel model is acquired through the following step:
the BS or transmitting apparatus acquires the a priori statistical correlation channel model through uplink channel sounding;
or,
the mobile terminal or receiving apparatus acquires the a priori statistical correlation channel model through downlink channel sounding.
As an improvement of the present invention, the a priori statistical correlation channel model uses one of the following models: a jointly correlated channel model, a separately correlated channel model and a fully correlated channel model.
As an improvement of the present invention, the a posteriori statistical channel model is acquired through the following step:
the BS or transmitting apparatus acquires channel information through channel estimation and prediction by using an uplink pilot signal and the a priori jointly correlated channel model;
or
the mobile terminal or receiving apparatus acquires channel information based on channel estimation, prediction and feedback by using a downlink pilot signal and the a priori jointly correlated channel model.
As an improvement of the present invention, the channel mean or expected value and the channel variance information in the a posteriori statistical channel model include posterior channel mean or expected value and posterior channel variance information.
As an improvement of the present invention, the posterior channel mean or expected value and the posterior channel variance information comprise:
Conditional mean or expected value and conditional variance information of the channels under the condition of the BS or transmitting apparatus receiving uplink pilot signals;
or
Conditional mean or expected value and conditional variance information of the channels under the condition of mobile terminals or receiving apparatuses receiving downlink pilot signals.
As an improvement of the present invention, the a posteriori statistical channel model is the one that involves channel estimation errors, channel aging and the influence of space correlation.
As an improvement of the present invention, the a posteriori statistical channel model uses one of the following models: a jointly correlated channel model, a separately correlated model and a fully correlated model.
As an improvement of the present invention, in the robust precoding transmission, the BS or transmitting apparatus performs linear precoding matrix design of each mobile terminal or receiving apparatus according to the weighted ergodic sum-rate maximization criterion, and the weighted ergodic sum-rate is the conditional mean of the weighted sum-rate calculated according to the established a posteriori statistical channel model.
As an improvement of the present invention, in the robust precoding transmission, when the BS or transmitting apparatus performs the linear precoder design of each mobile terminal or receiving apparatus according to the weighted ergodic sum-rate maximization criterion, solving the weighted ergodic sum-rate maximization problem is converted into iterative solving of a quadratic optimization problem through an MM algorithm.
As an improvement of the present invention, expectations of certain matrices required by solving the quadratic optimization problem are fast calculated by using their deterministic equivalents.
A channel acquisition method with pilot reuse for massive MIMO robust precoding transmission under imperfect CSI, comprising: a base station (BS) or transmitting apparatus—acquires a posteriori statistical channel models of the mobile terminals or receiving apparatuses, which includes channel mean or expected value and channel variance information; and the BS or transmitting apparatus performs robust precoding transmission by using the a posteriori statistical channel model including the channel mean or expected value and the channel variance information; In the robust precoding transmission, the downlink acquires channel information with pilot reuse in the precoding domain: the BS or transmitting apparatus transmits a downlink pilot signal to each mobile terminal or receiving apparatus in the precoding domain, the mobile terminal or receiving apparatus performs channel estimation of the equivalent channel in the precoding domain by using the received pilot signal, and the equivalent channel in the precoding domain is the original channel multiplied by the robust precoding matrix.
As an improvement of the present invention, the precoding domain pilot signal transmitted by the BS or the transmitting apparatus to each mobile terminal or receiving apparatus is transmitted on the same time-frequency resource, and the pilot signals of all mobile terminals or receiving apparatuses are not required to be orthogonal.
As an improvement of the present invention, the pilot signal in the precoding domain transmitted by the BS or transmitting apparatus to each mobile terminal or receiving apparatus is a frequency domain signal generated by modulating a ZC sequence or a group of ZC sequences.
A receiving method of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) robust precoding transmission, comprising: a mobile terminal or receiving apparatus receives a transmitted signal subjected to robust precoding transmission after it passes through a transmission channel, and the mobile terminal or receiving apparatus perform receive signal processing by using the received transmit signal.
As an improvement of the present invention, the received transmit signal comprises a downlink omnidirectional pilot signal, and/or a pilot signal in the robust precoding domain, and/or a data signal in the robust precoding domain.
As an improvement of the present invention, the pilot signal is a frequency domain signal generated by modulating a ZC sequence or a group of ZC sequences.
As an improvement of the present invention, in the received signal processing, the mobile terminal or receiving apparatus performs channel estimation, prediction and feedback by using the received downlink omnidirectional pilot signal.
As an improvement of the present invention, in the received signal processing, the mobile terminal or receiving apparatus performs channel estimation of the equivalent channel in the precoding domain by using the received pilot signal in the robust precoding domain.
As an improvement of the present invention, in the received signal processing, the mobile terminal or receiving apparatus performs demodulation or detection of the signal in the precoding domain by using the received data signal in the precoding domain.
The massive MIMO robust transmission method provided by the present invention can solve the universality problem of massive MIMO to various typical moving scenarios, and achieve high spectral efficiency. The present invention performs robust precoding transmission by using the a posteriori statistical channel model including the channel mean and the channel variance information, and the used statistical channel model is more sufficient and accurate. Reduced dimension transmission can be realized through the robust precoding method, so that the pilot expenses required by data transmission can be reduced, the complexity of demodulation or detection is lowered, and the overall efficiency of transmission is improved.
The technical solutions provided in the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to specific embodiments. It should be understood that the following specific embodiments are only used for illustrating the present invention and not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.
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The method of the present invention is mainly applicable to a massive MIMO system provided with a large-scale antenna array on the BS side, so as to simultaneously serve multiple users. A specific implementation process of the robust precoding transmission method disclosed in the present invention is described in detail below in conjunction with specific communication system examples. It should be noted that the method of the present invention is applicable to specific system models listed in the examples below, and is also applicable to system models with other configurations.
I. System Configuration
Consider a flat block fading large-scale MIMO system, wherein user channels remain unchanged within T symbol intervals. The MIMO system is composed of one BS and K mobile terminals. The BS is equipped with Mt antennas. The kth user is equipped with Mk antennas, and
The system time resource is divided into multiple time slots, each of which includes Nb time blocks (T symbol intervals). In the present embodiment, the considered massive MIMO system works in a time division duplexing (TDD) mode. For simplicity, suppose that only an uplink channel training stage and a downlink transmission stage exist, where the downlink transmission stage includes transmission of pilot signals and data signals in the precoding domain. In each time slot, the pilot signal is only transmitted on the first block. The blocks from 2 to Nb are configured to transmit a downlink pilot signal and the data signals in the precoding domain. The length of an uplink training sequence is equal to the length of a block, i.e., T symbol intervals. Further, mutually orthogonal training sequences (Mr≤T) are used for different uplink transmit antennas. For a frequency division duplexing (FDD) mode, the uplink channel training stage may be replaced by a downlink channel feedback stage, and the downlink transmission stage remains unchanged. Specifically, the first block transmits a downlink omnidirectional pilot signal and receives a feedback of the mobile terminal.
II. A Priori Statistical Channel Model
Assume that the channel of the considered massive MIMO system is a stationary channel, and the statistical channel model of each user is represented as a jointly correlated channel model. Specifically, the channel from the BS to the kth user on the nth block of the m-th time slot have the following structure
Hk,m,n=Uk(Mk⊙Wk,m,n)VkH (1)
where Uk and VkH are deterministic unitary matrices; Mk is a deterministic matrix composed of non-negative elements, and Wk,m,n is a matrix composed of zero-mean, unit-variance and independently and identically distributed complex Gaussian random variables. In the massive MIMO system, Mt may become very large. In such case, the Vk of all the users are the same. It is assumed in the present embodiment that the BS is equipped with a uniform linear antenna array with a very large number of antennas, i.e., Mt is very large. In this scenario, the Vk of all the users can be approximated as a DFT matrix. In summary, the channel model in equation (1) can be rewritten as
Hk,m,n=Uk(Mk⊙Wk,m,n)VM
where VM
Hk,m,n+1=αkHk,m,n+√{square root over (1−αk2)}Uk(Mk⊙Wk,m,n+1)VM
where αk is the time correlation factor related to the user moving speed. A common calculation method of αk based on Jakes' autocorrelation model is used, i.e., αk=J0(2πνkƒcT/c) where J0(•) denotes the first-class zero-order Bessel function; νk denotes the speed of the kth user; ƒc denotes the carrier frequency, and c is the speed of light. The model in equation (3) is configured to perform the channel prediction.
A channel energy coupling matrix Ωk of the massive MIMO system is defined as Ωk=Mk⊙Mk. For the considered massive MIMO system working in the TDD mode, it is assumed that the BS acquires the a priori jointly correlated channel model of each user through the uplink channel sounding, i.e., Uk and Ωk are acquired. For the massive MIMO system working in the FDD mode, the a priori jointly correlated channel model of each user can be acquired through the user downlink channel sounding.
III. A Posteriori Statistical Channel Model
For the considered massive MIMO system working in the TDD mode, the channel estimation by using the uplink pilot signals received by the BS is performed to acquire the CSI of the downlink channels based on channel reciprocity. Let Ym,lBS∈M
M
where Xk,m,nUE∈M
When Ym,1BS is known, the a posteriori mean of Hk,m,n, i. e., the MMSE estimation Ĥk,m,n is obtained as
Further, the a posteriori model of Hk,m,n when Ym,1BS is known is obtained as
Hk,m,n=Ĥk,m,n+Uk(Ξk⊙Wk,m,n)VM
where Wk,m,n is the matrix composed of the independently and identically distributed, zero-mean and unit-variance complex Gaussian random variable elements, and the element in Ξk∈M
Equation (7) shows that non-perfect CSI of each user equipment (UE) obtained at the BS side can be modeled as a jointly correlated channel model including channel mean (or referred to as expected value) and channel variance information, and the model includes channel estimation error, channel change and the influence of space correlation. In equation (7), the channel information acquired by the BS is the conditional mean (or referred to as conditional expected value) and the conditional variance information under the condition of the BS receiving uplink pilot signals. Further, the a posteriori model described in equation (7) is a general model of the imperfect CSI acquired at the BS side of the massive MIMO system under different moving scenarios. When αk is very close to 1, the model is applicable to the communication scenario where the channels of the users are quasi-static. When αk becomes very small, the model is applicable to the communication scenario where the users are moving very fast. Further, Ĥk,m,n becomes almost zero in this scenario, and the difference between the a posteriori model in equation (7) and the a priori model in equation (2) becomes very small. By setting the αk to different values according to different moving speeds of the users, the established a posteriori model can be configured to describe channel models of the massive MIMO in various typical mobile communication scenarios.
For the massive MIMO system working in the FDD mode, the a posteriori jointly correlated channel model in equation (7) can also be obtained through the channel estimation, prediction and feedback of the mobile terminal. Specifically, the BS transmits the downlink omnidirectional pilot signal, and the mobile terminal performs the channel estimation, prediction and feedback by using the received omnidirectional pilot signal. In such case, the channel information acquired in equation (7) becomes conditional mean (or referred to as conditional expected value) and conditional variance information under the condition of the mobile terminals receiving downlink pilot signals.
IV. Robust Precoder Design
1. Problem Statement
Consider the downlink transmission on the time slot m. Let xk,m,n denote the Mk×1-dimensional transmitting vector of the kth UE on the nth block of the time slot m, and its covariance matrix is an identity matrix. Within one symbol interval on the nth block of the time slot m, the received signal yk,m,n of the kth UE can be denoted as
where Pk,m,n is an Mk×dk dimensional precoding matrix of the kth UE, zk,m,n is a complex Gaussian random noise vector distributed as CN(0,σz2IM
is viewed as Gaussian noise. Let Rk,m,n denote the covariance matrix of zk,m,n′ and we have
where the expectation function EH
Rk,m,n=EH
where EH
is defined as a weighted ergodic sum-rate, i.e., a conditional mean of the weighted sum-rate calculated according to the established a posteriori statistical channel model. The present embodiment aims to design precoding matrices P1,m,n, P2,m,n, . . . , PK,m,n to maximize the weighted ergodic sum-rate, i.e., to solve the optimization problem
where wk is a weighting factor of the kth user, and P is total power constraint.
2. MM Algorithm for Robust Precoder Design
The objective function in the optimization problem (13) is a very complicated function of the precoding matrices, and thus this problem is very difficult to solve directly. A minorize maximization or majorize minimization (MM) algorithm may convert the precoding design problem on weighted sum-rate maximization into iterative solving of a quadratic optimization problem. The key of the MM algorithm is to find out a simple minorizing function of the objective function. For simplicity, unilateral correlation matrices ηk,m,npri({tilde over (C)}) and {tilde over (η)}k,m,npri(C) are defined as
Then, the rate mean Rk,m,n of the kth user is
Rk,m,n=EH
The function g1(P1,m,n, P2,m,n, . . . , PK,m,n|P1,m,n(d), P2,m,n(d), . . . , PK,m,n(d)) is defined as
then g1 is the minorizing function of the objective function ƒ on P1,m,n(d), P2,m,n(d), . . . , PK,m,n(d). By using g1, the original optimization problem (13) can be converted into the following iterative problem
In equation (26), a limit point of the precoding matrix sequence provided in equation (26) is a local maximum point of the original optimization problem (13). Further, the optimization problem in equation (26) is a concave quadratic function of the precoding matrices P1,m,n, P2,m,n, . . . , PK,m,n. The optimal solution can be directly obtained by the Lagrange multiplier method:
Pk,m,n(d+1)=(Dk,m,n(d)+μ*IM
where μ* is an optimal Lagrange multiplier corresponding to the energy constraint. Observing equation (27) and equations (22) to (25), we have that the calculation of precoders needs to use expectations of some random matrices. How to provide a fast calculation method by using deterministic equivalents will be further described in the following.
3. Robust Precoder Design Algorithm Based on Deterministic Equivalent
It can be observed from equations (23) and (24) that the matrices Bk,m,n(d) and Ck,m,n(d) and the rate Rk,m,n are closely related to derivatives of Pk,m,nPk,m,nH and Pl,m,nPl,m,nH, l≠k. The deterministic equivalents of Bk,m,n(d) and Ck,m,n(d) can be derived according to the deterministic equivalent of Rk,m,n. It is defined that
ηk,m,npost(Ć)=EH
{tilde over (η)}k,m,npost(C)=EH
The channel model provided in equation (7) is a jointly correlated channel model having a non-zero mean. For this type of model, the deterministic equivalent of Rk,m,n is obtained as
Rk,m,n=log det(IM
or
Rk,m,n=log det(IM
where Φk,m,n, {tilde over (Φ)}k,m,n, Γk,m,n, {tilde over (Γ)}k,m,n, Gk,m,n, {tilde over (G)}k,m,n are obtained through iterative equations
Φk,m,n=Id
{tilde over (Φ)}k,m,n=IM
Γk,m,n={tilde over (η)}k,m,npost(Rk,m,n−1/2{tilde over (G)}k,m,nRk,m,n−1/2)+Ĥk,m,nHRk,m,n−1/2{tilde over (Φ)}k,m,n−1Rk,m,n−1/2Ĥk,m,n (34)
{tilde over (Γ)}k,m,n=ηk,m,npost(Pk,m,nGk,m,nPk,m,nH)+Ĥk,m,nPk,m,nΦk,m,n−1Pk,m,nHĤk,m,nH (35)k,m,n=(Id
{tilde over (G)}k,m,n=(IM
and the deterministic equivalents of Bk,m,n(d) and Ck,m,n(d) can be further obtained as
Performing fast calculation by using the deterministic equivalents of Bk,m,n(d) and Ck,m,n(d), the precoder design based on the deterministic equivalent is obtained as
In summary, the robust precoder design is summarized as the following steps:
Step 1: Set d to 0, randomly generate a group of precoding matrices P1,m,n(d), P2,m,n(d), . . . , PK,m,n(d), and normalize them to meet the total energy constraint;
Step 2: Calculate Rk,m,n(d) according to equation (16);
Step 3: Calculate Γk,m,n and {tilde over (Γ)}k,m,n according to equations (34) to (35);
Step 4: Calculate Ak,m,n(d),
Step 5: Update P1,m,n(d+1), P2,m,n(d+1), . . . , PK,m,n(d+1), and set d to d+1;
Repeat steps 2 to 5 until convergence or a preset objective is achieved.
V. Implementation Effects
In order to make those skilled in the art understand the solution of the present invention better, sum-rate result comparisons between the robust precoding transmission method in the present embodiment and existing methods under two specific system configurations are listed as below.
Firstly, comparisons between the robust precoding transmission method in the present embodiment and a beam division multiple access (BDMA) method are provided. Consider a massive MIMO system with that the number of the transmit antennas of the BS Mt=128, the number of users K=10 and the number of user antennas Mk=4. The time correlation factor αk of each user is divided into five types, including α1,α2=0.999, α3,α4=0.9, α5,α6=0.5, α7,α8=0.1 and α9,α10=0, which denote the typical moving scenarios of the user at different moving speeds.
Secondly, a comparison between the robust precoding transmission method in the present embodiment and a robust regularized zero forcing (RZF) precoding method is provided. The robust RZF method is an extension of the RZF precoding method widely applied in a massive MIMO system with single-antenna users under the imperfect CSI. A massive MIMO system with Mt=128, K=20 and Mk=1 is considered.
It should be understood that, in the embodiments provided in this application, the disclosed method may be implemented in other manners without departing from the spirit and scope of this application. The embodiments herein are only exemplary examples and should not be construed as a limitation, and the specific contents described should not be construed as limiting the objectives of this application. For example, some features may be ignored or not implemented.
The technical means disclosed in the solutions of the present invention is not limited to the technical means disclosed in the above implementations, and also includes technical solutions formed by any combination of the above technical features. It should be noted that a person of ordinary skill in the art may make various improvements and refinements without departing from the principle of the present invention. All such modifications and refinements shall still fall within the protection scope of the present invention.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201710766951.3 | Aug 2017 | CN | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2017/106351 | 10/16/2017 | WO | 00 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2019/041470 | 3/7/2019 | WO | A |
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