Study of Robust Resource Allocation in Cell-Free Multiple-Antenna Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robust resource allocation framework for cell-free massive MIMO networks that improves sum-rate and reduces errors under imperfect CSI, using sequential strategies and robust algorithms.

Contribution

It proposes a novel robust resource allocation framework with specific algorithms for user scheduling and power allocation tailored for cell-free massive MIMO networks.

Findings

Performance improvement of up to 30% over existing methods

Effective mitigation of imperfect CSI effects

Analysis of computational costs of proposed algorithms

Abstract

Cell-free networks outperform cellular networks in many aspects, yet their efficiency is affected by imperfect channel state information (CSI). In order to address this issue, this work presents a robust resource allocation framework designed for the downlink of user-centric cell-free massive multi-input multi-output (CF-mMIMO) networks. This framework employs a sequential resource allocation strategy with a robust user scheduling algorithm designed to maximize the sum-rate of the network and two robust power allocation algorithms aimed at minimizing the mean square error, which are developed to mitigate the effects of imperfect CSI. An analysis of the proposed robust resource allocation problems is developed along with a study of their computational cost. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed robust resource allocation algorithms, showing a performance improvement of up to 30\% compared to existing techniques.