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I. INTRODUCTION
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques are
widely employed in wireless communication systems since spatial multiplexing can increase spectral efficiency [1]. The number of antennas in cellular and wireless local area network
(LAN) systems is increasing and it is expected that this increase will continue in order to satisfy the demands for higher
throughputs. In systems where the access point (AP) has a massive number of antennas (massive MIMO) [2], [3], precoding techniques can increase the throughput and/or reduce the
transmission power by using channel state information (CSI).
Combining MIMO with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) is also promising since OFDM yields
frequency-flat MIMO channels.
Multiuser MIMO transmission (MU-MIMO) [3][5] is a key
technology for Massive MIMO systems in allow the AP better
access to the large signal space since the number of antennas at
the user station (STA) is restricted by the power consumption,
and the small antenna space available. MU-MIMO precoding
increases the spectrum efficiency of communication with multiManuscript received January 31, 2013.
R. Kudo and M. Mizoguchi are with NTT Network Innovation
Laboratories, Yokosuka, Japan, 239-0847, email:
{kudo.riichi, mizoguchi.masato}@lab.ntt.co.jp.
S. M. D. Armour and J. P. McGeehan are with the Center for Communications Research, University of Bristol, UK, email:{j.p.mcgeehan, Simon.Armour}@bristol.ac.uk.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JCN.2013.000066
ple user stations (STAs) that have fewer antennas. However, the
CSI at the AP must be accurate in order to reduce the inter-user
interference. Efficient CSI estimation is thus required in order
to implement MU-MIMO-OFDM for massive MIMO systems.
Closed-loop and open-loop CSI estimation methods have
been proposed. The open-loop approach uses the channel reciprocity and estimates the downlink CSI using the uplink CSI and
calibration techniques. This approach can be used only for time
division duplex (TDD) systems. If the calibration is perfectly
conducted, the open-loop approach is very attractive for massive MIMO systems. However, MU-MIMO transmission performance degrades if the calibration error increases CSI error at
the transmitter. Furthermore, it is difficult to exploit the channel
reciprocity in frequency division duplex (FDD) systems. This
paper focuses on the closed-loop approach to dispense with any
requirement for channel reciprocity. In the closed loop approach
for massive MIMO systems, the overhead of the training frames
for CSI estimation and the CSI feedback degrade the MAC efficiency.
To reduce the CSI feedback bits, time domain feedback was
proposed in [6], [7]. However, the accuracy of CSI in the time
domain is affected by the null data subcarriers demanded by
OFDM symbol design and a costly transformation into the time
domain is required at the STA. The alternative approaches,
CSI compression methods of channel matrices in frequency flat
channels were proposed in [8], [9]. It is known that CSI is effectively compressed by utilizing its characteristic of unitary matrices in complex Euclidean space [10]. CSI compression based
on a unitary matrix in the frequency domain is used in IEEE
802.11n [11]. Note that IEEE 802.11ac supports only unitary
matrix CSI compression for CSI feedback [12]. CSI feedback
methods for massive MIMO systems have been proposed in
[13]. CSI estimation in [13] needs to transmit as many OFDM
pilot symbols as there are transmit antennas to obtain full CSI.
This paper proposes a CSI estimation method that uses a
small number of long training frames (LTFs). Reducing the
number of pilot symbols reduces the CSI feedback overhead
and the computational loads for CSI estimation and transmission weight calculation. The proposed CSI estimation scheme
is based on the iterative CSI estimation of [14]. The iterative
CSI estimation scheme obtains the CSI for all transmit antennas
by using additional CSI estimation beams. Since the AP calculates the CSI estimation weight using the prior estimated CSI
and different code book vectors are used as the CSI estimation
weights of the additional beams, the performance of MU-MIMO
transmission using iterative CSI estimation approaches that of a
full antenna estimation, which transmits LTFs as many as the
number of transmit antennas. However, iterative CSI estimation
needs sufficient time duration to converge on the best transmis-
c 2013 KICS
1229-2370/13/$10.00
Access point
Block diagonalization
Codebook based LTF
Channel state information
CSI feedback
Frequency division duplex
Long training frame
Medium access control
Multiple input multiple output
Multiuser MIMO
Null data packet
353
NDPA
OFDM
QAM
STA
SVD
H
Y0,k,i X1
0,i A0
Hk,i + N0,k,i
(2)
k,i
VS,k,i
354
k,i CMr Mr and
N,k,i
S,k,i V
where U
V
C(Mt (K1)Mr )(Mt (K1)Mr ) are the left and right singular
k,i is the diagonal matrix. Transvectors, respectively, and
and as follows.
VS,k,i
ej11
0
..
.
0
0
..
.
..
.
ej(Mt 1)1
0
..
0
..
.
0
1
cos21 sin21
0
0
sin21 cos21
0
0
IMt 2
cosMt 1
0
sinMt 1
0
IMt 2
0
sinMt 1
0
cosMt 1
IMr
0
C=
(4)
(5)
j=1
j6=k
where QS,k,i QN,k,i is the Mt Mt unitary matrix and
RS,k,i is the (K 1)Mr (K 1)Mr upper triangular matrix.
The signal space vectors QS,k,i CMt (K1)Mr correspond to
the signal space for the other STAs, and the null space vectors,
QN,k,i CMt (Mt (K1)Mr ) , correspond to the zero matrix in
(6). Since QN,k,i is orthogonal to VS,j,i j 6= k, the inter-user
interference can be cancelled by using QN,k,i . Next, SVD is
conducted for the channel matrix in the null space as
H
k,i
VS,k,i
QN,k,i = U
k,i
S,k,i
V
N,k,i
V
H
i=1 k=1
F X
K
X
(7)
H
Wk,i
HH
k,i Hk,i Wk,i
+
P
K
H HH H W ||2
2
+ j=1 ||Wj,i
j,i
k,i k,i
j6=k
(8)
where BF is the bandwidth of each subcarrier and the interuser interference is assumed to be zero-mean complex Gaussian. Note that this does not consider the feedback overhead,
guard interval, and uplink transmission.
III. PROPOSED CSI ESTIMATION SCHEME
In the proposed CSI estimation scheme, the AP transmits MP
(n)
LTFs by using the CSI estimation weight T0,i CMt MP for
the ith subcarrier. The proposed CSI estimation scheme consists of two schemes; one is an iterative CSI estimation scheme
and the other is a CSI aggregation scheme. It was shown that
the transmission performance of iterative CSI estimation approaches that of full CSI estimation with Mt LTFs in [13]. The
iterative CSI estimation scheme estimates full rank CSI by using additional CSI estimation weight based on a code book. The
problem of the iterative CSI estimation scheme is that it takes
time to converge on the best transmission performance. The CSI
aggregation scheme combines subspace CSI at multiple subcarriers to calculate the CSI estimation weight for the next CSI estimation. Since the CSI aggregation combination enables the AP
to estimate the CSI corresponding to a wider signal space, it is
expected that the CSI aggregation scheme can avoid the problem
of iterative CSI estimation.
In this paper, we consider constant data transmission with the
STAs. To conduct MU-MIMO transmission, CSI estimation is
conducted before data transmission. The time interval of CSI
estimation is set to T0 . The CSI estimation weight for the ith
(n)
subcarrier is defined as T0,i , where n denotes how many CSI
estimations have been conducted. The received signal matrix at
(n)
STA k for the nth CSI estimation, Y0,k,i CMr MP , is given
by
(n)
(n)
(n)
Y0,k,i =
y0,k,i,1 y0,k,i,MP
=
(n)
(9)
Gk,i
(n)
H
= Y0,k,i X1
0,i A0
(n)
355
(n)
(n) H
(10)
0
The first CSI estimation weight is selected from code book
..
..
..
0
.
.
.
R . The CSI estimation weight at the ith subcarrier for the first
VS,k,i = .
..
estimation is given by
..
. ej(Mt 1)1 0
(1)
0
0
1
(14)
T0,i = P eR,b[i,1] eR,b[i,MP ]
cos21 sin21
0
where b[i, j] is defined as the selected vector of R for the CSI
0
sin21 cos21
estimation weight vector at the jth codebook-based-LTF (CLTF)
0
0
IMt 2
at the ith subcarrier. b[i, j] is given by
cosMt 1
0
sinMt 1
(
0
IMt 2
0
b[i, j] = 1 + b[i, j 1] + Ng [n] mod Mt
(15)
sinMt 1
0
cosMt 1
b[i, 1] = 1 + i 1 mod Mt
j1
e
0
the
nth CSI estimation. Table 1 shows the case where F = 52,
0
ejMr
0
based on Table 1, the AP can estimate the CSI corresponding
..
..
to all code book vectors by using the fed back unitary matri ..
.
.
ces in 4 neighboring subcarriers. It can be seen that the first to
0
0
eighth CLTFs contain the 1st to 32nd code book vectors. When
where Mr angles, 1 , , Mr , are added to (4). The subspace Ng [n] is greater than four, the AP obtains CSI corresponding to
(n)
all transmit antennas, which contains CSI corresponding to the
channel matrix Gk,i CMr MP is expressed by SVD as in
same code book vectors at different times and different subcarriers.
(n)
(n) H (n) H (n) H
Gk,i = Uk,i k,i Vk,i
(13)
When n is greater than 1, the CSI estimation weight is calculated
as
(n)
(n)
where k,i CMr Mr is the diagonal matrix and Uk,i
(n)
(n)
(n)
(16)
T0,i = P T(n)
E i
CMr Mr and VS,k,i CMt Mr are the left and right singular
i
356
(n)
(n)
(n)
CMt KMr
=
where Ti
ti,1 ti,KMr
is the signal-space CSI estimation weight which is calculated by using CSI fed back from the STAs and
(n)
E i = ( eR,b[i,MP +(n1)Ncode +1] eR,b[i,MP +nNcode ] )
CMt Ncode is an additional CSI estimation weight which is calculated using the selected code book vectors (b[i, MP + (n
(n)
1)Ncode + 1] to b[i, MP + nNcode ]). The calculation of Ti
(n)
and E i are described in the next subsection. Unlike all col(1)
umn vectors of T0,i are chosen from the code book, the signalspace CSI estimation Ti is calculated by the CSI corresponding to MP Ng [1] CSI estimation beams. Thus, the CSI obtained
(2)
by T0,i corresponds to greater than MP Ng [1] CSI estimation
(2)
H1,i
..
. = UA,i
HK,i
A,i
VSA,i
VNA,i
H
(17)
(n)
(n)
(n)
VA,i
(n)
Ei
(n)
QSA,i
(n)
QNA,i
(n)
RA,i
0
(19)
(n)
where Ei = eR,b[i,MP +(n1)Ncode +1] eR,b[i,MP +nNcode ]
(n)
is the code book vectors at ith subcarrier, QSA,i is the Mt
(n)
(n)
(n)
.
(20)
T0,i = P QSA,i = P T(n)
E
i
i
(n)
(n) H
If Gk,i
where UA,i CKMr KMr and VSA,i VNA,i CMt Mt
are the left and right singular vectors, respectively, and A,i is
the KMr KM
VSA,i is identical to
When
r diagonal matrix.
PK
(n+1) 2
(n+1)
(n+1)
H
|| is
= 1, k=1 ||Hk,i Ti
and det VSA,i Ti
Ti
PK
2
maximized and becomes P k=1 ||Hk,i || .
The CSI aggregation scheme estimates VSA,i of the aggregate channel matrix as the CSI estimation weight at the ith
(n)
subcarrier for the (n + 1)th CSI estimation by using VP,k,i in
Ng [n] subcarriers. The aggregate matrix for the ith subcarrier,
VA,i CMt (KMr ) is defined as
(n)
(n)
(n)
(n)
VP,K,S[i,1]
VP,1,S[i,1]
..
..
..
.
.
.
(n)
(n)
VP,1,S[i,Ng [n]] VP,K,S[i,Ng [n]]
(18)
357
p
p
(n)
VP,1,i
(n)
. . . VP,k1,i
=
(n)
QSW,k,i
(n)
. . . VP,K,i
(n)
QNW,k,i
VP,k+1,i
(n)
(n)
RW,k,i
0
(21)
(n)
where Q(n)
is the MP MP unitary maQ
SW,k,i
NW,k,i
trix, and RW,k,i is the (K 1)Mr (K 1)Mr upper triangular matrix. The signal space vectors QSW,k,i CMP (K1)Mr
correspond to the signal space for the other STAs, and the null
(n)
space vectors, QNW,k,i CMP (MP (K1)Mr ) , correspond to
the zero matrix. SVD is conducted for the channel matrix in the
null space as
H
(n)
(n)
P,k,i
VP,k,i QNW,k,i = U
P,k,i
SP,k,i
V
NP,k,i
V
H
p
p
(22)
P.k,i CMr Mr and
NP,k,i
SP,k,i V
where U
V
C(MP (K1)Mr )(MP (K1)Mr are the left and right singular
P,k,i is the diagonal matrix. Since
vectors, respectively, and
the matrix sizes of (21) and (22) are less than those in (6) and
(7), the complexity of calculating the transmission weight is
less than that of the conmventional system. Transmission weight
(n)
SP,k,i . The
Wk,i CMt Mr is determined as T0,i QNW,k,i V
p
norms of its column vectors are set to P/KMr .
IV. EIGENVECTOR ESTIMATION USING SUBSPACE
EIGENVECTORS
VA,i does not approach the right singular vectors of the aggregate channel matrix, VSA,i . In this section, the basic characteristic of the CSI aggregation scheme is evaluated. Consider the
flat fading channel between the single transmitter and the single receiver. The channel matrix is expressed as an Mr Mt
random complex Gaussian matrix H. The mean and covariance
values of the elements of H are assumed to be zero and one,
respectively. Here, H is divided into Ng matrices as
H = H1 H2 HN g
(23)
(n)
Hk are given by
H
Hk
=
=
U
Uk
VS
VN
VS,k
H
VN,k
(24)
H
(25)
where U CMr Mr and Uk CMr Mr are the left singular vectors, ( VS VN ) CMt Mt and ( VS,k VN,k )
CMP MP are the right singular vectors, and and k are the
singular matrices of an Mr Mr diagonal matrix, for H and Hk ,
respectively. The conventional CSI estimation is equivalent with
the case where the right singular vectors of the channel matrix
are available at the transmitter, while the proposed CSI estimation corresponds to the case where the modified unitary matrices
of the divided channel matrices are available at the transmitter.
The MP Mr modified unitary matrix is given by
VP,k = VS,k UH
k .
(26)
358
VP,1
..
VA =
.
.
(27)
VP,Ng
(28)
PP = ||HQSA ||2 .
(29)
Fig. 1 shows the CDF of the channel powers when there are 32
transmit and 2 receive antennas. The median value of P0 is 18.0
dB, which corresponds to the channel matrix size of 32 2 (=
64). When VA is calculated by using two sets of the modified
unitary matrices of the two subspace channel matrices in (27)
(Ng = 2, MP = 16), the decrease in the median value of the
channel power is only 0.066 dB. This fall increases as the number of subspaces increases. The decreases in the median values
are 0.21, 0.50, and 1.19 dB for the divided subspace numbers
(Ng ) of 4, 8, and 16, respectively. Thus, the channel power decreases are less than 1 dB while the number of LTFs should be
no less than eight for the 32 2 matrix. Fig. 2 shows the CDFs
for the transmit antenna number of 128. The channel power decreases become very small when the transmit antenna number
becomes large. The channel power decreases are 0.018, 0.049,
0.12, and 0.26 dB for the divided subspace numbers (Ng ) of 2, 4,
8, and 16, respectively. Even if the CSI estimation weight is calculated by using sixteen modified unitary matrices (Ng = 16),
the decrease in channel power is very slight. The channel power
decrease is caused by insufficient information about the eigenvalues. The channel power decrease strengthens as the differences between the eigenvectors of the divided channel matrices
increases. In other words, the decrease does not occur if all divided channel matrices have the same eigenvalues. The eigenvalue differences decrease as the number of the elements of the
divided channel matrix increases. Thus, the proposed modified
unitary matrix feedback becomes more effective as the transmit
antenna number increases.
V. TIME DURATION OF CSI ESTIMATION
To show the impact of the proposed CSI estimation scheme
on MAC efficiency, the time required for CSI estimation is evaluated based on the IEEE 802.11ac standard [12]. The transmission sequence is summarized in Fig. 3, where NF is the number
of OFDM symbols transmitted by the STA for CSI feedback.
The AP first transmits a null data packet announcement (NDPA)
and then a null data packet (NDP) for CSI estimation. NDP contains LTFs as expressed by (1) and (9) The STA then estimates
the CSI from the received NDP and feeds back the CSI to the
359
t
g1
g2
g2
g1
[15] are used and the distance between the AP and STAs is set to
5 m and 20 m, respectively. The average delay spreads in channel models C and E are 30 ns and 100 ns, respectively. The correlation between the channel matrix at neighbouring subcarriers
are shown in Fig. 5. The correlation value is calculated as
#
"
|hk,i,j hH
k,i+i,j |
(30)
=E
||hk,i,j ||||hk,i+i,j ||
where hk,i,j is jth row vector of the channel matrix Hk,i and i
is a subcarrier interval. It is found that the channel correlation in
channel model E is much less than that in channel model C. The
Doppler spread of the Bell-shape Doppler spectrum is set to 0.41
Hz to satisfy the coherence time of 800 ms in IEEE 802.11ac
[16]. The numbers of transmit antennas, receive antennas, STAs,
and subcarriers are set to 32, 2, 3, and 52 (Mt = 32, Mr =
2, K = 3, and F = 52). In the proposed CSI estimation scheme,
eight LTFs are used to estimate the channel matrices (MP = 8)
and CSI estimation weight in the first CSI estimation are chosen
from the code book. After the second CSI estimation, KMr CSI
estimation weight vectors are calculated by using the obtained
CSI (KMr = 6) and Ncode CSI weight vectors are chosen from
the code book (Ncode = 2, and MP = KMr + Ncode = 8).
Since the 8 2 unitary matrices are fed back to the AP and the
AP generates the matrices using (18), this condition corresponds
to the case of Ng = 4 in Fig. 1. The radio frequency and the
bandwidth of each subcarrier were 5.2 GHz and 312.5 kHz (BF
= 3.125 105 ), respectively. For unitary matrix feedback, the
quantization bit number Nbit was set to 9 bits.
200 channel sets were generated and Figs. 6 and 7 show the
median values of achievable bit rates versus time for the low
and high delay spread scenarios, respectively. The x axis denotes the elapsed time after the first CSI estimation. The time
interval of CSI estimation and data transmission was set to 6
ms (T0 = 6). The delay between CSI estimation and transmission was set to 1 ms for all methods and block fading was assumed. Fig. 6 shows the median achievable bit rates of the proposed CSI estimation method with Ng1 of 4 and Ng2 of 3, the
conventional iterative CSI estimation (the same as the proposal
Fig. 6. The median value of achievable bit rates with CSI estimation
interval of 6 ms for 3 STAs in 32 2 MIMO in a low delay spread
channel.
t
g2
g1
g1
g2
Fig. 7. The median value of achievable bit rates with CSI estimation
interval of 6 ms for 3 STAs in 32 2 MIMO in a high delay spread
channel.
with Ng1 of 1 and Ng2 of 1), and the conventional full rank CSI
estimation in 32 2 MIMO with MP of 32. As a reference,
the achievable bit rate of full rank CSI estimation with the transmit antenna number as the LTF number of the proposal (8 2
MIMO) is also shown. By using the proposed pilot design and
feedback method, high transmission performance was obtained
after the second data transmission, while the conventional iterative CSI estimation needs time to converge to achieve high
transmission performance. The transmission performance of the
proposed method at the first data transmission is almost the same
as that of the full CSI estimation for the transmit antenna number
of eight (Mt = 8) because the CSI estimation weight of the first
360
trans.
trans.
Fig. 8. The median value of achievable bit rates at the 2nd data transmission with CSI estimation interval of 6 ms versus the number of
subcarriers, Ng1 or Ng2 , for 3 STAs in 32 2 MIMO in a low delay
spread channel.
trans.
trans.
Fig. 9. The median value of achievable bit rates at the 2nd data transmission with CSI estimation interval of 6 ms versus the number of
subcarriers, Ng1 or Ng2 , for 3 STAs in 32 2 MIMO in a high delay
spread channel.
lay spread scenarios. When considering the MU-MIMO transmission with 3 user stations using eight LTFs in 32 2 MIMOOFDM systems, the median values of achievable bit rates of
the second data transmission in the proposed method are 98.3%
and 97.5% those of full CSI estimation scheme, and those of
the converged data transmission are 98.7% and 98.6% those of
full CSI estimation scheme in the low and large delay spread
scenarios, respectively. In the MU-MIMO transmission with 3
user stations in 32 2 MIMO OFDM systems, the time duration taken by proposed CSI estimation scheme with eight LTFs
is reduced to just 37% of that for the full CSI estimation. The
effectiveness of the proposed CSI estimation scheme is expected
to rise with the number of transmit antennas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors appreciate Mr. Kazuyasu Okada, the former Executive Manager of NTT Network Innovation Laboratories, for
his constant encouragement.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
361
Joe P. McGeehan received the Ph.D. and D.Eng. degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from
the University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U.K. in 1971
and 2003, respectively. He is currently a Director of
the Centre for Communication Research, University
of Bristol, Bristol, U.K. and Senior General Advisor
of Toshibas Telecommunications Research Laboratory. Since 1973, he has been researching spectrumefficient mobile-radio communication systems and
has pioneered work in many areas including linearized
power amplifiers, wideband code-division multiple
access (3G), and smart antennas. Dr. McGeehan has served on numerous international committees and was advisor to the UKs first DTI/MOD Defence
Spectrum Review Committee in the late 1970s. In 2004, he was listed as one of
the worlds top technology agenda setters by silicon.com. He was joint recipient
of the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology Neal Shepherd Memorial
Award for work on SMART Antennas, and the IEE Proceedings Mountbatten
Premium for work on satellite-tracking. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy
of Engineering and received recognition as a Commander of the British Empire
(CBE) in 2004 for services to the communications industry.