On the Impact of Hardware Impairments on Massive MIMO

TL;DR

This paper investigates how hardware impairments such as distortion and noise affect the performance of massive MU-MIMO systems, combining theoretical analysis with simulations based on realistic models.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of hardware impairments in massive MU-MIMO, using both simplified and realistic models to evaluate their impact.

Findings

Hardware impairments degrade system performance.

Realistic models show more significant effects.

Implications for hardware design in massive MIMO.

Abstract

Massive multi-user (MU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems are one possible key technology for next generation wireless communication systems. Claims have been made that massive MU-MIMO will increase both the radiated energy efficiency as well as the sum-rate capacity by orders of magnitude, because of the high transmit directivity. However, due to the very large number of transceivers needed at each base-station (BS), a successful implementation of massive MU-MIMO will be contingent on of the availability of very cheap, compact and power-efficient radio and digital-processing hardware. This may in turn impair the quality of the modulated radio frequency (RF) signal due to an increased amount of power-amplifier distortion, phase-noise, and quantization noise. In this paper, we examine the effects of hardware impairments on a massive MU-MIMO single-cell system by means of theory and simulation. The simulations are performed using simplified, well-established statistical hardware impairment models as well as more sophisticated and realistic models based upon measurements and electromagnetic antenna array simulations.