Random Access Protocol for Massive MIMO: Strongest-User Collision Resolution (SUCR)

TL;DR

This paper introduces SUCR, a novel random access protocol for Massive MIMO systems that leverages channel hardening to efficiently resolve user collisions in high-density networks.

Contribution

The paper presents a new collision resolution protocol, SUCR, that exploits Massive MIMO channel properties to improve random access efficiency and collision management.

Findings

SUCR effectively resolves most pilot collisions in Massive MIMO.

The protocol enables users to detect and compare channel strengths distributively.

SUCR improves access efficiency in high-user-density scenarios.

Abstract

Wireless networks with many antennas at the base stations and multiplexing of many users, known as Massive MIMO systems, are key to handle the rapid growth of data traffic. As the number of users increases, the random access in contemporary networks will be flooded by user collisions. In this paper, we propose a reengineered random access protocol, coined strongest-user collision resolution (SUCR). It exploits the channel hardening feature of Massive MIMO channels to enable each user to detect collisions, determine how strong the contenders' channels are, and only keep transmitting if it has the strongest channel gain. The proposed SUCR protocol can quickly and distributively resolve the vast majority of all pilot collisions.