A lower bound on achievable rate of MRT precoding in multicell multiuser massive MIMO networks with Rician flat fading

Summary A multicell multiuser massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) network with Rician flat fading is considered. Given channel reciprocity, non-orthogonal uplink channel training in conjunction with minimum mean square error channel estimation at the base stations are used to acquire channel state information. In the forward link, using maximal ratio transmission precoding, base stations send data to corresponding users. In this paper, first, a closed-form expression for signal to interference and noise ratio and a lower bound on achievable rate are obtained for arbitrary number of base station antennas. Then, using random matrix theory, a simplified approximate expression for large number of base station antennas (i.e., massive MIMO scenario) are calculated. This simplified expression shows that in a multicell multiuser massive MIMO network with Rician flat fading, like Rayleigh fading, as the number of base station antennas goes to infinity, the effects of uncorrelated noise and intercell and intracell interferences tend to zero. The only factor limiting the performance of system is the correlated intercell interference, that is, pilot contamination, due to non-orthogonality of channel training sequences in adjacent cells. Numerical results show that our obtained closed-form expression is a good lower bound on sum-rate for various system parameters. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.