Capacity Bounds for One-Bit MIMO Gaussian Channels with Analog Combining

TL;DR

This paper investigates the capacity limits of 1-bit quantized MIMO channels with analog combining, proposing new bounds, schemes, and a novel receiver architecture that approaches capacity in different SNR regimes.

Contribution

It introduces a tighter capacity upper bound, an achievable scheme with optimized analog combiners, and a new 1-bit MIMO receiver architecture employing analog processing.

Findings

Tighter capacity upper bound for zero threshold ADCs.

Achievable rate matches capacity in low SNR regime.

New receiver architecture attains capacity at high SNR.

Abstract

The use of 1-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) is seen as a promising approach to significantly reduce the power consumption and hardware cost of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) receivers. However, the nonlinear distortion due to 1-bit quantization fundamentally changes the optimal communication strategy and also imposes a capacity penalty to the system. In this paper, the capacity of a Gaussian MIMO channel in which the antenna outputs are processed by an analog linear combiner and then quantized by a set of zero threshold ADCs is studied. A new capacity upper bound for the zero threshold case is established that is tighter than the bounds available in the literature. In addition, we propose an achievability scheme which configures the analog combiner to create parallel Gaussian channels with phase quantization at the output. Under this class of analog combiners, an algorithm is presented that identifies the analog combiner and input distribution that maximize the achievable rate. Numerical results are provided showing that the rate of the achievability scheme is tight in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. Finally, a new 1-bit MIMO receiver architecture which employs analog temporal and spatial processing is proposed. The proposed receiver attains the capacity in the high SNR regime.