arXiv subjects

Hien Quoc Ngo

Publications and source records attributed to Hien Quoc Ngo.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Channel Estimation and Hybrid Combining for Wideband Terahertz Massive MIMO Systems

Terahertz (THz) communication is widely considered as a key enabler for future 6G wireless systems. However, THz links are subject to high propagation losses and inter-symbol interference due to the frequency selectivity of the channel. Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) along with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) can be used to deal with these problems. Nevertheless, when the propagation delay across the base station (BS) antenna array exceeds the symbol period, the spatial response of the BS array varies across the OFDM subcarriers. This phenomenon, known as beam squint, renders narrowband combining approaches ineffective. Additionally, channel estimation becomes challenging in the absence of combining gain during the training stage. In this work, we address the channel estimation and hybrid combining problems in wideband THz massive MIMO with uniform planar arrays. Specifically, we first introduce a low-complexity beam squint mitigation scheme based on true-time-delay. Next, we propose a novel variant of the popular orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) algorithm to accurately estimate the channel with low training overhead. Our channel estimation and hybrid combining schemes are analyzed both theoretically and numerically. Moreover, the proposed schemes are extended to the multi-antenna user case. Simulation results are provided showcasing the performance gains offered by our design compared to standard narrowband combining and OMP-based channel estimation.

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arXiv2021

Massive MIMO under Double Scattering Channels: Power Minimization and Congestion Controls

This paper considers a massive MIMO system under the double scattering channels. We derive a closed-form expression of the uplink ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) by exploiting the maximum-ratio combining technique with imperfect channel state information. We then formulate and solve a total uplink data power optimization problem that aims at simultaneously satisfying the required SEs from all the users with limited power resources. We further propose algorithms to cope with the congestion issue appearing when at least one user is served by lower SE than requested. Numerical results illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed power optimization. More importantly, our proposed congestion-handling algorithms can guarantee the required SEs to many users under congestion, even when the SE requirement is high.

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arXiv2021

Enhanced Normalized Conjugate Beamforming for Cell-Free Massive MIMO

In cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) the fluctuations of the channel gain from the access points to a user are large due to the distributed topology of the system. Because of these fluctuations, data decoding schemes that treat the channel as deterministic perform inefficiently. A way to reduce the channel fluctuations is to design a precoding scheme that equalizes the effective channel gain seen by the users. Conjugate beamforming (CB) poorly contributes to harden the effective channel at the users. In this work, we propose a variant of CB dubbed enhanced normalized CB (ECB), in that the precoding vector consists of the conjugate of the channel estimate normalized by its squared norm. For this scheme, we derive an exact closed-form expression for an achievable downlink spectral efficiency (SE), accounting for channel estimation errors, pilot reuse and user's lack of channel state information (CSI), assuming independent Rayleigh fading channels. We also devise an optimal max-min fairness power allocation based only on large-scale fading quantities. ECB greatly boosts the channel hardening enabling the users to reliably decode data relying only on statistical CSI. As the provided effective channel is nearly deterministic, acquiring CSI at the users does not yield a significant gain.

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arXiv2020

A Low-Complexity Approach for Max-Min Fairness in Uplink Cell-Free Massive MIMO

We consider the problem of max-min fairness for uplink cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output which is a potential technology for beyond 5G networks. More specifically, we aim to maximize the minimum spectral efficiency of all users subject to the per-user power constraint, assuming linear receive combining technique at access points. The considered problem can be further divided into two subproblems: the receiver filter coefficient design and the power control problem. While the receiver coefficient design turns out to be a generalized eigenvalue problem, and thus, admits a closed-form solution, the power control problem is numerically troublesome. To solve the power control problem, existing approaches rely on geometric programming (GP) which is not suitable for large-scale systems. To overcome the high-complexity issue of the GP method, we first reformulate the power control problem intro a convex program, and then apply a smoothing technique in combination with an accelerated projected gradient method to solve it. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed solution can achieve almost the same objective but in much lesser time than the existing GP-based method.

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arXiv2020

The Road to 6G: Ten Physical Layer Challenges for Communications Engineers

While the deployment of 5G cellular systems will continue well in to the next decade, much interest is already being generated towards technologies that will underlie its successor, 6G. Undeniably, 5G will have transformative impact on the way we live and communicate, yet, it is still far away from supporting the Internet-of-Everything (IoE), where upwards of a million devices per $\textrm{km}^3$ (both terrestrial and aerial) will require ubiquitous, reliable, low-latency connectivity. This article looks at some of the fundamental problems that pertain to key physical layer enablers for 6G. This includes highlighting challenges related to intelligent reflecting surfaces, cell-free massive MIMO and THz communications. Our analysis covers theoretical modeling challenges, hardware implementation issues and scalability among others. The article concludes by delineating the critical role of signal processing in the new era for wireless communications.

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arXiv2020

Utility Maximization for Large-Scale Cell-Free Massive MIMO Downlink

We consider the system-wide utility maximization problem in the downlink of a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system whereby a very large number of access points (APs) simultaneously serve a group of users. Specifically, four fundamental problems with increasing order of user fairness are of interest: (i) to maximize the average spectral efficiency (SE), (ii) to maximize the proportional fairness, (iii) to maximize the harmonic-rate of all users, and lastly (iv) to maximize the minimum SE of all users, subject to a sum power constraint at each AP. As the considered problems are non-convex, existing solutions normally rely on successive convex approximation to find a sub-optimal solution. More specifically, these known methods use off-the-shelf convex solvers, which basically implement an interior-point algorithm, to solve the derived convex problems. The main issue of such methods is that their complexity does not scale favorably with the problem size, limiting previous studies to cell-free massive MIMO of moderate scales. Thus the potential of cell-free massive MIMO has not been fully understood. To address this issue, we propose a unified framework based on an accelerated projected gradient method to solve the considered problems. Particularly, the proposed solution is found in closed-form expressions and only requires the first order oracle of the objective, rather than the Hessian matrix as in known solutions, and thus is much more memory efficient. Numerical results demonstrate that our proposed solution achieves the same utility performance but with far less run-time, compared to other second-order methods. Simulation results for large-scale cell-free massive MIMO show that the four utility functions can deliver nearly uniformed services to all users. In other words, user fairness is not a great concern in large-scale cell-free massive MIMO.

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arXiv2020

Towards Large Intelligent Surface (LIS)-based Communications

The concept of large intelligent surface (LIS)-based communication has recently raised research attention, in which a LIS is regarded as an antenna array whose entire surface area can be used for radio signal transmission and reception. To provide a fundamental understanding of LIS-based communication, this paper studies the uplink (UL) performance of LIS-based communication with matched filtering. We first investigate the new properties introduced by LIS. In particular, the array gain, spatial resolution, and the capability of interference suppression are theoretically presented and characterized. Then, we study two possible LIS system layouts in terms of UL, i.e., centralized LIS (C-LIS) and distributed LIS (D-LIS). Our analysis showcases that a centralized system has strong capability of interference suppression; in fact, interference can nearly be eliminated if the surface area is sufficient large or the frequency band is sufficient high. For D-LIS, we propose a series of resource allocation algorithms, including user association scheme, orientation control, and power control, to extend the coverage area of a distributed system. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms significantly improve the system performance, and even more importantly, we observe that D-LIS outperforms CLIS in microwave bands, while C-LIS is superior to D-LIS in mmWave bands. These observations serve as useful guidelines for practical LIS deployments.

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arXiv2020

Cell-Free Massive MIMO for Wireless Federated Learning

This paper proposes a novel scheme for cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CFmMIMO) networks to support any federated learning (FL) framework. This scheme allows each instead of all the iterations of the FL framework to happen in a large-scale coherence time to guarantee a stable operation of an FL process. To show how to optimize the FL performance using this proposed scheme, we consider an existing FL framework as an example and target FL training time minimization for this framework. An optimization problem is then formulated to jointly optimize the local accuracy, transmit power, data rate, and users' processing frequency. This mixed-timescale stochastic nonconvex problem captures the complex interactions among the training time, and transmission and computation of training updates of one FL process. By employing the online successive convex approximation approach, we develop a new algorithm to solve the formulated problem with proven convergence to the neighbourhood of its stationary points. Our numerical results confirm that the presented joint design reduces the training time by up to $55\%$ over baseline approaches. They also show that CFmMIMO here requires the lowest training time for FL processes compared with cell-free time-division multiple access massive MIMO and collocated massive MIMO.

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arXiv2020

Uplink Power Control in Cellular Massive MIMO Systems: Coping With the Congestion Issue

One main goal of 5G-and-beyond systems is to simultaneously serve many users, each having a requested spectral efficiency (SE), in an energy-efficient way. The network capacity cannot always satisfy all the SE requirements, for example, when some users have bad channel conditions, especially happening in a cellular topology, and therefore congestion can happen. By considering both the pilot and data powers in the uplink transmission as optimization variables, this paper formulates and solves an energy-efficiency problem for cellular Massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) systems that can handle the congestion issue. New algorithms based on the alternating optimization approach are proposed to obtain a fixed-point solution. Numerical results manifest that the proposed algorithms can provide the demanded SEs to many users even when the congestion happens.

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arXiv2020

Downlink Spectral Efficiency of Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems with Multi-antenna Users

This paper studies a cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system where its access points (APs) and users are equipped with multiple antennas. Two transmission protocols are considered. In the first transmission protocol, there are no downlink pilots, while in the second transmission protocol, downlink pilots are proposed in order to improve the system performance. In both transmission protocols, the users use the minimum mean-squared error-based successive interference cancellation (MMSE-SIC) scheme to detect the desired signals. For the analysis, we first derive a general spectral efficiency formula with arbitrary side information at the users. Then analytical expressions for the spectral efficiency of different transmission protocols are derived. To improve the spectral efficiency (SE) of the system, max-min fairness power control (PC) is applied for the first protocol by using the closed-form expression of its SE. Due to the computation complexity of deriving the closed-form performance expression of SE for the second protocol, we apply the optimal power coefficients of the first protocol to the second protocol. Numerical results show that two protocols combining with multi-antenna users are prerequisites to achieve the suboptimal SE regardless of the number of user in the system.

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arXiv2020

Large intelligent surface (LIS)-based communications: New features and system layouts

The concept of large intelligent surface (LIS)-based communication has recently attracted increasing research attention, where a LIS is considered as an antenna array whose entire surface area is available for radio signal transmission and reception. In order to provide a fundamental understanding of LIS-based communication, this paper studies the uplink performance of LIS-based communication with matched filtering in the presence of a line-of-sight channel. We first study the new features introduced by LIS. In particular, the array gain, spatial resolution, and the capability of interference suppression are theoretically presented and characterized. Then, we study two possible LIS system layouts, i.e., centralized LIS (C-LIS) and distributed LIS (D-LIS), and propose a user association scheme aiming to maximize the minimum user spectral efficiency (SE). Simulation results compare the achievable SE between two system layouts. We observe that the proposed user association algorithm significantly improves the performance of D-LIS, and with the help of it, the per-user achievable SE in D-LIS outperforms that in C-LIS in most considered scenarios.

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arXiv2020

Deep Energy Autoencoder for Noncoherent Multicarrier MU-SIMO Systems

We propose a novel deep energy autoencoder (EA) for noncoherent multicarrier multiuser single-input multipleoutput (MU-SIMO) systems under fading channels. In particular, a single-user noncoherent EA-based (NC-EA) system, based on the multicarrier SIMO framework, is first proposed, where both the transmitter and receiver are represented by deep neural networks (DNNs), known as the encoder and decoder of an EA. Unlike existing systems, the decoder of the NC-EA is fed only with the energy combined from all receive antennas, while its encoder outputs a real-valued vector whose elements stand for the subcarrier power levels. Using the NC-EA, we then develop two novel DNN structures for both uplink and downlink NC-EA multiple access (NC-EAMA) schemes, based on the multicarrier MUSIMO framework. Note that NC-EAMA allows multiple users to share the same sub-carriers, thus enables to achieve higher performance gains than noncoherent orthogonal counterparts. By properly training, the proposed NC-EA and NC-EAMA can efficiently recover the transmitted data without any channel state information estimation. Simulation results clearly show the superiority of our schemes in terms of reliability, flexibility and complexity over baseline schemes.

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arXiv2020

Massive MIMO with Multi-Antenna Users under Jointly Correlated Ricean Fading

We study the uplink performance of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) when users are equipped with multiple antennas. To this end, we consider a generalized channel model that accounts for line-of-sight propagation and spatially correlated multipath fading. Most importantly, we employ the Weichselberger correlation model, which has been shown to alleviate the deficiencies of the popular Kronecker model. The main contribution of this paper is a rigorous closed-form expression for the uplink spectral efficiency using maximum-ratio combining and minimum mean square error channel estimation. Our result is a non-trivial generalization of previous results on massive MIMO with spatially correlated channels, thereby enabling us to have suitable designs for future massive MIMO systems. Numerical simulations corroborate our analysis and provide useful insights on how different propagation conditions affect system performance.

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arXiv2019

Downlink Training in Cell-Free Massive MIMO: A Blessing in Disguise

Cell-free Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) refers to a distributed Massive MIMO system where all the access points (APs) cooperate to coherently serve all the user equipments (UEs), suppress inter-cell interference and mitigate the multiuser interference. Recent works demonstrated that, unlike co-located Massive MIMO, the \textit{channel hardening} is, in general, less pronounced in cell-free Massive MIMO, thus there is much to benefit from estimating the downlink channel. In this study, we investigate the gain introduced by the downlink beamforming training, extending the previously proposed analysis to non-orthogonal uplink and downlink pilots. Assuming single-antenna APs, conjugate beamforming and independent Rayleigh fading channel, we derive a closed-form expression for the per-user achievable downlink rate that addresses channel estimation errors and pilot contamination both at the AP and UE side. The performance evaluation includes max-min fairness power control, greedy pilot assignment methods, and a comparison between achievable rates obtained from different capacity-bounding techniques. Numerical results show that downlink beamforming training, although increases pilot overhead and introduces additional pilot contamination, improves significantly the achievable downlink rate. Even for large number of APs, it is not fully efficient for the UE relying on the statistical channel state information for data decoding.

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arXiv2019

Ubiquitous Cell-Free Massive MIMO Communications

Since the first cellular networks were trialled in the 1970s, we have witnessed an incredible wireless revolution. From 1G to 4G, the massive traffic growth has been managed by a combination of wider bandwidths, refined radio interfaces, and network densification, namely increasing the number of antennas per site. Due its cost-efficiency, the latter has contributed the most. Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) is a key 5G technology that uses massive antenna arrays to provide a very high beamforming gain and spatially multiplexing of users, and hence, increases the spectral and energy efficiency. It constitutes a centralized solution to densify a network, and its performance is limited by the inter-cell interference inherent in its cell-centric design. Conversely, ubiquitous cell-free Massive MIMO refers to a distributed Massive MIMO system implementing coherent user-centric transmission to overcome the inter-cell interference limitation in cellular networks and provide additional macro-diversity. These features, combined with the system scalability inherent in the Massive MIMO design, distinguishes ubiquitous cell-free Massive MIMO from prior coordinated distributed wireless systems. In this article, we investigate the enormous potential of this promising technology while addressing practical deployment issues to deal with the increased back/front-hauling overhead deriving from the signal co-processing.

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arXiv2019

On the Energy Efficiency of Limited-Backhaul Cell-Free Massive MIMO

We investigate the energy efficiency performance of cell-free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), where the access points (APs) are connected to a central processing unit (CPU) via limited-capacity links. Thanks to the distributed maximum ratio combining (MRC) weighting at the APs, we propose that only the quantized version of the weighted signals are sent back to the CPU. Considering the effects of channel estimation errors and using the Bussgang theorem to model the quantization errors, an energy efficiency maximization problem is formulated with per-user power and backhaul capacity constraints as well as with throughput requirement constraints. To handle this non-convex optimization problem, we decompose the original problem into two sub-problems and exploit a successive convex approximation (SCA) to solve original energy efficiency maximization problem. Numerical results confirm the superiority of the proposed optimization scheme.

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arXiv2019

Max-Min Rate of Cell-Free Massive MIMO Uplink with Optimal Uniform Quantization

Cell-free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is considered, where distributed access points (APs) multiply the received signal by the conjugate of the estimated channel, and send back a quantized version of this weighted signal to a central processing unit (CPU). For the first time, we present a performance comparison between the case of perfect fronthaul links, the case when the quantized version of the estimated channel and the quantized signal are available at the CPU, and the case when only the quantized weighted signal is available at the CPU. The Bussgang decomposition is used to model the effect of quantization. The max-min problem is studied, where the minimum rate is maximized with the power and fronthaul capacity constraints. To deal with the non-convex problem, the original problem is decomposed into two sub-problems (referred to as receiver filter design and power allocation). Geometric programming (GP) is exploited to solve the power allocation problem whereas a generalized eigenvalue problem is solved to design the receiver filter. An iterative scheme is developed and the optimality of the proposed algorithm is proved through uplink-downlink duality. A user assignment algorithm is proposed which significantly improves the performance. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed schemes.

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arXiv2018

On the Performance of Backhaul Constrained Cell-Free Massive MIMO with Linear Receivers

Limited-backhaul cell-free Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), in which the fog radio access network (F-RAN) is implemented to exchange the information between access points (APs) and the central processing unit (CPU), is investigated. We introduce a novel approach where the APs estimate the channel and send back the quantized version of the estimated channel and the quantized version of the received signal to the central processing unit. The Max algorithm and the Bussgang theorem are exploited to model the optimum uniform quantization. The ergodic achievable rates are derived. We show that exploiting microwave wireless backhaul links and using a small number of bits to quantize the estimated channel and the received signal, the performance of limited-backhaul cell-free Massive MIMO closely approaches the performance of cell-free Massive MIMO with perfect backhaul links.

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