This letter presents the first work introducing a deep learning (DL) framework for channel estimation in large intelligent surface (LIS) assisted massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) systems. A twin convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture is designed and it is fed with the received pilot signals to estimate both direct and cascaded channels. In a multiuser scenario, each user has access to the CNN to estimate its own channel. The performance of the proposed DL approach is evaluated and compared with state-of-the-art DLbased techniques and its superior performance is demonstrated.

Abstract-Recent works have identified massive multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO) as a key technology for achieving substantial gains in spectral and energy efficiency. Additionally, the turn to low-cost transceivers, being prone to hardware impairments is the most effective and attractive way for costefficient applications concerning massive MIMO systems. In this context, the impact of channel aging, which severely affects the performance, is investigated herein by considering a generalized model. Specifically, we show that both Doppler shift because of the users' relative movement as well as phase noise due to noisy local oscillators (LOs) contribute to channel aging. To this end, we first propose a joint model, encompassing both effects, in order to investigate the performance of a massive MIMO system based on the inevitable time-varying nature of realistic mobile communications. Then, we derive the deterministic equivalents (DEs) for the signal-to-noise-and-interference ratios (SINRs) with maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and regularized zero-forcing precoding (RZF). Our analysis not only demonstrates a performance comparison between MRT and RZF under these conditions, but most importantly, it reveals interesting properties regarding the effects of user mobility and phase noise. In particular, the large antenna limit behavior depends profoundly on both effects, but the burden due to user mobility is much more detrimental than phase noise even for moderate user velocities (≈ 30 km/h), while the negative impact of phase noise is noteworthy at lower mobility conditions. Moreover, massive MIMO systems are favorable even in general channel aging conditions. Nevertheless, we demonstrate that the transmit power of each user to maintain a certain quality of service can be scaled down at most by 1 √ M (M is the number of BS antennas), which indicates that the joint effects of phase noise and user mobility do not degrade the power scaling law, but only the achievable sum-rate.

Abstract-Delayed channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) due to time variation of the channel, coming from the users' relative movement with regard to the BS antennas, is an inevitable degrading performance factor in practical systems. Despite its importance, little attention has been paid to the literature of multi-cellular multiple-input massive multiple-output (MIMO) system by investigating only the maximal ratio combining (MRC) receiver and the maximum ratio transmission (MRT) precoder. Hence, the contribution of this work is designated by the performance analysis/comparison of/with more sophisticated linear techniques, i.e., a minimum-mean-square-error (MMSE) detector for the uplink and a regularized zero-forcing (RZF) precoder for the downlink are assessed. In particular, we derive the deterministic equivalents of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs), which capture the effect of delayed CSIT, and make the use of lengthy Monte Carlo simulations unnecessary. Furthermore, prediction of the current CSIT after applying a Wiener filter allows to evaluate the mitigation capabilities of MMSE and RZF. Numerical results depict that the proposed achievable SINRs (MMSE/RZF) are more efficient than simpler solutions (MRC/MRT) in delayed CSIT conditions, and yield a higher prediction at no special computational cost due to their deterministic nature. Nevertheless, it is shown that massive MIMO are preferable even in time-varying channel conditions.

Rate-Splitting (RS) has recently been shown to provide significant performance benefits in various multi-user transmission scenarios. In parallel, the huge degrees-of-freedom provided by the appealing massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) necessitate the employment of inexpensive hardware, being more prone to hardware imperfections, in order to be a cost-efficient technology. Hence, in this work, we focus on a realistic massive Multiple-Input Single-Output (MISO) Broadcast Channel (BC) hampered by the inevitable hardware impairments. We consider a general experimentally validated model of hardware impairments, accounting for the presence of multiplicative distortion due to phase noise, additive distortion noise and thermal noise amplification. Under both scenarios with perfect and imperfect channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT), we analyze the potential robustness of RS to each separate hardware imperfection. We analytically assess the sum-rate degradation due to hardware imperfections. Interestingly, in the case of imperfect CSIT, we demonstrate that RS is a robust strategy for multiuser MIMO in the presence of phase and amplified thermal noise, since its sum-rate does not saturate at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrary to conventional techniques. On the other hand, the additive impairments always lead to a sum-rate saturation at high SNR, even after the application of RS. However, RS still enhances the performance. Furthermore, as the number of users increases, the gains provided by RS decrease not only in ideal conditions, but in practical conditions with RTHIs as well. Notably, although a deterministic equivalent analysis is employed, the analytical and simulation results coincide even for finite system dimensions. As a consequence, the applicability of these results also holds for current "small-scale" multi-antenna systems.Index Terms-Rate-splitting, massive MIMO, residual hardware impairments, regularized zero-forcing precoding, deterministic equivalent analysis.

This paper investigates the achievable sum-rate of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems in the presence of channel aging. For the uplink, by assuming that the base station (BS) deploys maximum ratio combining (MRC) or zero-forcing (ZF) receivers, we present tight closed-form lower bounds on the achievable sum-rate for both receivers with aged channel state information (CSI). In addition, the benefit of implementing channel prediction methods on the sum-rate is examined, and closed-form sum-rate lower bounds are derived. Moreover, the impact of channel aging and channel prediction on the power scaling law is characterized. Extension to the downlink scenario and multicell scenario is also considered. It is found that, for a system with/without channel prediction, the transmit power of each user can be scaled down at most by 1/ √ M (where M is the number of BS antennas), which indicates that aged CSI does not degrade the power scaling law, and channel prediction does not enhance the power scaling law; instead, these phenomena affect the achievable sum-rate by degrading or enhancing the effective signal to interference and noise ratio, respectively.

Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), consisting of lowcost passive elements, is a promising technology for improving the spectral and energy efficiency of the fifth-generation (5G) and beyond networks. It is also noteworthy that an IRS can shape the reflected signal propagation. Most works in IRSassisted systems have ignored the impact of the inevitable residual hardware impairments (HWIs) at both the transceiver hardware and the IRS while any relevant works have addressed only simple scenarios, e.g., with single-antenna network nodes and/or without taking the randomness of phase noise at the IRS into account. In this work, we aim at filling up this gap by considering a general IRS-assisted multi-user (MU) multiple-input single-output (MISO) system with imperfect channel state information (CSI) and correlated Rayleigh fading. In parallel, we present a general computationally efficient methodology for IRS reflect beamforming (RB) optimization. Specifically, we introduce an advantageous channel estimation (CE) method for such systems accounting for the HWIs. Moreover, we derive the uplink achievable spectral efficiency (SE) with maximal-ratio combining (MRC) receiver, displaying three significant advantages being: 1) its closed-form expression, 2) its dependence only on large-scale statistics, and 3) its low training overhead. Notably, by exploiting the first two benefits, we achieve to perform optimization with respect to the that can take place only at every several coherence intervals, and thus, reduces significantly the computational cost compared to other methods which require frequent phase optimization. Among the insightful observations, we highlight that uncorrelated Rayleigh fading does not allow optimization of the SE, which makes the application of an IRS ineffective. Also, in the case that the phase drifts, describing the distortion of the phases in the RBM, are uniformly distributed, the presence of an IRS provides no advantage. The analytical results outperform previous works and are verified by Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations.

Cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input-multipleoutput (MIMO) has emerged as an alternative deployment for conventional cellular massive MIMO networks. As revealed by its name, this topology considers no cells, while a large number of multi-antenna access points (APs) serves simultaneously a smaller number of users over the same time/frequency resources through time-division duplex (TDD) operation. Prior works relied on the strong assumption (quite idealized) that the APs are uniformly distributed, and actually, this randomness was considered during the simulation and not in the analysis. However, in practice, ongoing and future networks become denser and increasingly irregular. Having this in mind, we consider that the AP locations are modeled by means of a Poisson point process (PPP) which is a more realistic model for the spatial randomness than a grid or uniform deployment. In particular, by virtue of stochastic geometry tools, we derive both the downlink coverage probability and achievable rate. Notably, this is the only work providing the coverage probability and shedding light on this aspect of CF massive MIMO systems. Focusing on the extraction of interesting insights, we consider small-cells (SCs) as a benchmark for comparison. Among the findings, CF massive MIMO systems achieve both higher coverage and rate with comparison to SCs due to the properties of favorable propagation, channel hardening, and interference suppression. Especially, we showed for both architectures that increasing the AP density results in a higher coverage which saturates after a certain value and increasing the number of users decreases the achievable rate but CF massive MIMO systems take advantage of the aforementioned properties, and thus, outperform SCs. In general, the performance gap between CF massive MIMO systems and SCs is enhanced by increasing the AP density. Another interesting observation concerns that a higher path-loss exponent decreases the rate while the users closer to the APs affect more the performance in terms of the rate.

In multi-user millimeter wave (mmWave) multipleinput-multiple-output (MIMO) systems, hybrid precoding is a crucial task to lower the complexity and cost while achieving a sufficient sum-rate. Previous works on hybrid precoding were usually based on optimization or greedy approaches. These methods either provide higher complexity or have sub-optimum performance. Moreover, the performance of these methods mostly relies on the quality of the channel data. In this work, we propose a deep learning (DL) framework to improve the performance and provide less computation time as compared to conventional techniques. In fact, we design a convolutional neural network for MIMO (CNN-MIMO) that accepts as input an imperfect channel matrix and gives the analog precoder and combiners at the output. The procedure includes two main stages. First, we develop an exhaustive search algorithm to select the analog precoder and combiners from a predefined codebook maximizing the achievable sum-rate. Then, the selected precoder and combiners are used as output labels in the training stage of CNN-MIMO where the input-output pairs are obtained. We evaluate the performance of the proposed method through numerous and extensive simulations and show that the proposed DL framework outperforms conventional techniques. Overall, CNN-MIMO provides a robust hybrid precoding scheme in the presence of imperfections regarding the channel matrix. On top of this, the proposed approach exhibits less computation time with comparison to the optimization and codebook based approaches.