Abstract
Multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) has the potential to substantially increase the uplink network efficiency by multiplexing the user terminals' (UTs) transmissions in the spatial domain. However, demultiplexing the transmissions at the network side, known as MU-MIMO detection, can become a considerable signal processing challenge, especially in cases with a high spatial user load. During the last two decades, the MIMO detection problem has been extensively studied, and many receiver designs have been proposed that offer very good tradeoffs in complexity vs. performance. Nevertheless, MU-MIMO detection still presents challenges in signal processing scalability in the system size and modulation order. We revisit this problem but through an alternative method of joint transmitter and receiver design. Two approaches that exhibit near-optimal reliability and low complexity are presented: First, a technique that uses real-valued modulation in fully- and over-loaded cases in large MU-MIMO systems, where there are equal or more UTs than service antennas. It is seen that the use of real constellations with a widely linear equaliser benefits from an increased spatial diversity gain over complex constellations with a linear equaliser. Moreover, a likelihood ascent search (LAS) algorithm post-processing stage is applied to further improve the error performance. Computer simulations show remarkable results for large MU-MIMO sizes in uncoded or coded cases. Second, recognising that real-valued modulation offers poor modulation efficiency, a real-complex hybrid modulation (RCHM) scheme is proposed, where a mix of real- and complex-valued symbols are interleaved in the spatial and temporal domains. It is seen that RCHM combines the merits of real and complex modulations and enables the adjustment of the diversity-multiplexing tradeoff. Through the system outage probability analysis, the optimal ratio of the number real-to-complex symbols, as well as their optimal power allocation, is found for the RCHM pattern. Furthermore, reliability is improved with a small expense in complexity through the use of a successive interference cancellation (SIC) stage. Results are validated through the mathematical analysis of the average bit error rate and through computer simulations considering single and multiple base station scenarios, which show SNR gains over conventional approaches in excess of 5 dB at 1% BLER. The results suggest that an expense in complexity is not the only way to improve error performance, but near-optimal reliability is also possible using simple techniques through a reduction in the multiplexing gain. Therefore, rather than a two-way complexity vs. performance tradeoff in MU-MIMO detection, a three-way tradeoff may be more appropriate, and is roughly expressed in the following statement: “Low complexity, high reliability, high multiplexing gain: choose two.”