Pilot Decontamination in CMT-based Massive MIMO Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes a blind equalization method for CMT-based massive MIMO networks that effectively mitigates pilot contamination without inter-cell cooperation or extra training, enhancing channel estimation accuracy.

Contribution

It extends blind equalization from single antenna to multi-cell massive MIMO, removing pilot contamination effects without additional training or cooperation.

Findings

Significant reduction in channel estimation errors.

Improved capacity potential of massive MIMO networks.

Effective removal of residual pilot contamination effects.

Abstract

Pilot contamination problem in massive MIMO networks operating in time-division duplex (TDD) mode can limit their expected capacity to a great extent. This paper addresses this problem in cosine modulated multitone (CMT) based massive MIMO networks; taking advantage of their so-called blind equalization property. We extend and apply the blind equalization technique from single antenna case to multi-cellular massive MIMO systems and show that it can remove the channel estimation errors (due to pilot contamination effect) without any need for cooperation between different cells or transmission of additional training information. Our numerical results advocate the efficacy of the proposed blind technique in improving the channel estimation accuracy and removal of the residual channel estimation errors caused by the users of the other cells.