Local Partial Zero-Forcing Precoding for Cell-Free Massive MIMO

TL;DR

This paper introduces two distributed precoding schemes, PZF and PPZF, for cell-free Massive MIMO systems that enhance spectral efficiency by balancing interference cancellation and signal boosting without extra fronthaul, suitable for APs with few antennas.

Contribution

The paper proposes novel local partial zero-forcing schemes for cell-free Massive MIMO, providing closed-form spectral efficiency expressions and enabling optimized power control strategies.

Findings

PZF and PPZF outperform maximum ratio transmission and zero-forcing.

Their performance is comparable to regularized zero-forcing (RZF).

Closed-form SE expressions facilitate optimal power control.

Abstract

Cell-free Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) is a promising distributed network architecture for 5G-and-beyond systems. It guarantees ubiquitous coverage at high spectral efficiency (SE) by leveraging signal co-processing at multiple access points (APs), aggressive spatial user multiplexing and extraordinary macro-diversity gain. In this study, we propose two distributed precoding schemes, referred to as \textit{local partial zero-forcing} (PZF) and \textit{local protective partial zero-forcing} (PPZF), that further improve the spectral efficiency by providing an adaptable trade-off between interference cancelation and boosting of the desired signal, with no additional front-hauling overhead, and implementable by APs with very few antennas. We derive closed-form expressions for the achievable SE under the assumption of independent Rayleigh fading channel, channel estimation error and pilot contamination. PZF and PPZF can substantially outperform maximum ratio transmission and zero-forcing, and their performance is comparable to that achieved by regularized zero-forcing (RZF), which is a benchmark in the downlink. Importantly, these closed-form expressions can be employed to devise optimal (long-term) power control strategies that are also suitable for RZF, whose closed-form expression for the SE is not available.