Millimeter multi-user massive MIMO simplified using antenna selection and one-bit quantized channel estimation

In this paper, the achievable throughput is investigated in a millimeter wave (mm-wave) channel when the receiver uses a one-bit quantizer and an antenna selection stage to reconstruct the received data sequence. The channel state information (CSI) is assumed to be unknown at both of transmitter and receiver. Multiple transmitters, each equipped with a single antenna, represent the transmitter side and a single receiver, with a massive number of antennas, represents the other side. The receiver estimates the CSI of all the antennas using one-bit quantized received pilot signals via the least square channel estimation scheme. The estimated CSI is used to feed the antenna selection (AS) block which is responsible for selecting the used receiving antennas from the set of all available antennas. The AS is used to reduce the hardware complexity and cost of the system. Both of the maximum ratio combining and the zero forcing receiver structures are considered in the performance analysis. Soft decision and hard decision cases are also considered. The numerical analysis shows that (as an example), when the system is equipped with AS, it can save 50% of the installed radio frequency chains on the expense of a small reduction in the achievable throughput.