Analytical Performance Evaluation of MRC Receivers in Massive MIMO Systems

• Main Authors: Jamal Beiranvand, Hamid Meghdadi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2018-01-01
• Series: IEEE Access
• Subjects: Massive MIMO systems; maximum-ratio-combining (MRC) receivers; probability density function; signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio
• Online Access: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8472883/

In recent years, massive or large-scale multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems that rely on very large antenna arrays have become a hot topic of research in the field of wireless communications. This is in part due to the nearly optimum performance and relative simplicity of massive MIMO linear receivers and transmitters. This paper investigates the performance of maximum-ratio combining linear receivers in massive MIMO communication systems in terms of signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), bit error rate (BER), and outage probability. The probability density function (PDF) of SINR is analytically calculated for the first time and verified by simulation. Due to its complexity, the use of obtained analytical expression for performance evaluation purposes is prohibitive. Hence, this PDF is approximated by a gamma distribution and the resulting expression is used to evaluate the outage probability and the BER performance of the receiver.