Iterative Detection Schemes for Uplink Highly Loaded User-Centric Hybrid Beamforming Based Frequency Selective Massive MIMO Networks

In cell-free (CF) networks, access points (APs) jointly serve the user equipments (UEs). In user-centric (UC) variant, only a handful of APs serve a particular UE, namely the ones with the best channels. In this paper, we propose a hybrid beamforming aided uplink receiver scheme for highly loaded UC massive MIMO (mMIMO) networks, operating in millimeter-wave(mmWave) frequencies, employing single carrier modulation under frequency selective channels. Every AP employs its own analog beamformer (AB) called the modified eigen-beamformer (MEB), which promotes a trend of fairness. In the digital domain, two detectors are proposed; Cell-Free Iterative Detector (CFI-D) and User-Centric Iterative Subset-Detector (UCIS-D). CFI-D introduces the iterative block decision feedback equalization (IB-DFE) method for CF networks. UCIS-D is an alternative to CFI-D. UCIS-D is UC, has low computational complexity (CCP) and is scalable. UCIS-D relies on parallel interference cancellation (PIC) aided IB-DFE. Interfering UEs are divided into three sets. Weak interferers are processed with PIC, strong interferers with IBDFE which considers the residual interference from PIC. Weakest interferers are ignored. Both PIC and IB-DFE utilize the soft decisions from previous iterations. Simulation results show that these receivers can handle ultra high loads in terms of bit-error-rate (BER) and achievable information rate (AIR).