Foundations of User-Centric Cell-Free Massive MIMO

Book excerpt: Modern day cellular mobile networks use Massive MIMO technology to extend range and service multiple devices within a cell. This has brought tremendous improvements in the high peak data rates that can be handled. Nevertheless, one of the characteristics of this technology is large variations in the quality of service dependent on where the end user is located in any given cell. This becomes increasingly problematic when we are creating a society where wireless access is supposed to be ubiquitous. When payments, navigation, entertainment, and control of autonomous vehicles are all relying on wireless connectivity the primary goal for future mobile networks should not be to increase the peak rates, but the rates that can be guaranteed to the vast majority of the locations in the geographical coverage area. The cellular network architecture was not designed for high-rate data services but for low-rate voice services, thus it is time to look beyond the cellular paradigm and make a clean-slate network design that can reach the performance requirements of the future. This monograph considers the cell-free network architecture that is designed to reach the aforementioned goal of uniformly high data rates everywhere. The authors introduce the concept of a cell-free network before laying out the foundations of what is required to design and build such a network. They cover the foundations of channel estimation, signal processing, pilot assignment, dynamic cooperation cluster formation, power optimization, fronthaul signaling, and spectral efficiency evaluation in uplink and downlink under different degrees of cooperation among the access points and arbitrary linear combining and precoding. This monograph provides the reader with all the fundamental information required to design and build the next generation mobile networks without being hindered by the inherent restrictions of modern cellular-based technology.