arXiv · 2507.21626
Comprehensive Analysis of Behavioral Hardware Impairments in Cell-Free Massive MIMO-OFDM Uplink: Centralized Operation
Abstract
Cell-free massive MIMO is a key 6G technology, offering superior spectral and energy efficiency. However, its dense deployment of low-cost access points (APs) makes hardware impairments unavoidable. While narrowband impairments are well-studied, their impact in wideband systems remains unexplored. This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of hardware impairments, such as nonlinear distortion in low-noise amplifiers, phase noise, in-phase-quadrature imbalance, and low-resolution analog-to-digital converters, on uplink spectral efficiency in cell-free massive MIMO. Using an OFDM waveform and centralized processing, APs share channel state information for joint uplink combining. Leveraging Bussgang decomposition, we derive a distortion-aware combining vector that optimizes spectral efficiency by modeling distortion as independent colored noise.
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Özlem Tuğfe Demir, Muhammed Selman Somuncu, Ahmet M. Elbir, Emil Björnson. 2025-07-29. Comprehensive Analysis of Behavioral Hardware Impairments in Cell-Free Massive MIMO-OFDM Uplink: Centralized Operation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21626
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