Dominant Channel Estimation Via Mips For Large Scale Antenna Systems With Ont Bit Adcs
Dominant Channel Estimation Via Mips For Large Scale Antenna Systems With Ont Bit Adcs
Abstract—In large-scale antenna systems, using one-bit analog- past [8], although not widely, and begun to be in the spotlight
to-digital converters (ADCs) has recently become important since recently [9]–[11]. In [8], extensions of the conventional DOA
they offer significant reductions in both power and cost. However, estimators to one-bit ADCs, based on the arcsine law [12],
in contrast to high-resolution ADCs, the coarse quantization of
one-bit ADCs results in an irreversible loss of information. In [13], have been studied. The one-bit spatial smoothing MUSIC
the context of channel estimation, studies have been developed (SS MUSIC) proposed in [9], which also relies on the arcsine
extensively to combat the performance loss incurred by one- law, considers DOA estimation in sparse arrays. The drawback
bit ADCs. Furthermore, in the field of array signal processing, of the DOA estimators in [8], [9] is that many independent
direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation combined with one-bit observations are needed to reconstruct the covariance matrix.
ADCs has gained growing interests recently to minimize the
estimation error. In this paper, a channel estimator is proposed The work in [10] proposed the gridless one-bit DOA estimator
for one-bit ADCs where the channels are characterized by their based on the support vector machine (SVM), which is cumber-
angular geometries, e.g., uniform linear arrays (ULAs). The goal some in practice since the coarse DOA estimate based on the
is to estimate the dominant channel among multiple paths. The SVM should be refined using the Taylor expansion to obtain
proposed channel estimator first finds the DOA estimate using the the gridless DOA estimate.
maximum inner product search (MIPS). Then, the channel fading
coefficient is estimated using the concavity of the log-likelihood In this paper, we propose a channel estimator for one-
function. The limit inherent in one-bit ADCs is also investigated, bit ADCs where the channels are characterized by their
which results from the loss of magnitude information. angular geometries, e.g., uniform linear arrays (ULAs). In
particular, the channel is composed of multiple paths where
I. I NTRODUCTION
each path is characterized by its channel fading coefficient
In large-scale antenna systems, known as massive multiple- and steering vector parameterized by the DOA. The goal
input multiple-output (MIMO), a significant performance gain is to estimate the dominant channel, known as the line-of-
is achieved by deploying a large number of antennas at the sight (LOS) channel. The proposed channel estimator finds
base station. However, the hardware cost and excessive power the DOA estimate via the maximum inner product search
consumption due to the large number of antennas make high- (MIPS). Then, the channel fading coefficient is estimated by
resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) less attractive, maximizing the log-likelihood function at the MIPS DOA
and using low-resolution, or even the extreme case of one-bit, estimate using convex optimization. In contrast to [8], [9],
ADCs has gained popularity [1]–[4]. The drawback of one-bit the MIPS DOA estimator finds the DOA estimate using the
ADCs is that the information loss resulting from the coarse instantaneous received signal. The simulation results show
quantization is severe, acting as a performance bottleneck. that the proposed channel estimator performs close to the
In [5]–[7], channel estimators for one-bit ADCs have been pseudo ML (pML) channel estimator, which maximizes the
proposed. In [5], the near maximum likelihood (nML) channel likelihood function assuming that the sum of the non-line-
estimator relies on the concavity of the log-likelihood function of-sight (NLOS) channels and noise is white and Gaussian.
assuming that the channels have no predefined structure. The The MIPS-based channel estimator is also computationally
modified expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm proposed efficient compared to the pML channel estimator. In addition,
in [6] exploits the channel sparsity of millimeter wave sys- we investigate the performance limit of the pML channel
tems. However, the computational complexities of the channel estimator in one-bit ADCs.
estimators introduced in [5], [6] are expensive because both
are based on the ML channel estimator. The Bussgang linear II. S YSTEM M ODEL
minimum mean squared error (BLMMSE) channel estimator
introduced in [7] uses the second-order channel statistics to We consider a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) system
formulate the one-bit LMMSE channel estimator based on the where the receiver employs an array of antennas characterized
Bussgang decomposition, which is only applicable to Gaussian by its angular geometry. At each antenna, the received signal’s
distributed channels. real and imaginary parts are quantized by one-bit ADCs.
In the field of array signal processing, direction-of-arrival The single-antenna transmitter transmits a pilot sequence of
(DOA) estimation for one-bit ADCs has been studied in the length N to the M -antenna receiver. Therefore, the received
where the inner optimization problem of (20) can be solved which completes the proof.
using convex optimization, e.g., the gradient descent method Lemma 1 shows that kĥ0,pML k becomes deterministic in the
(GDM) using the backtracking line search [14]. high SNR regime, implying that one-bit ADCs do not convey
Second, note that Lρ̃ (g00 , θ00 ) has no explicit structure with any channel quality information (CQI) in the absence of noise.
respect to θ00 . Thus, to solve the outer optimization problem of In contrast to full-resolution ADCs where noise is generally
(20), Θ should be searched exhaustively; that is, the number not welcomed, the presence of noise may enhance the channel
of convex optimization performed is proportional to the size of estimation performance in one-bit ADCs. The intuitive reason
Θ. For example, assume that the inner optimization problem is why the magnitude information of the received signal is lost
solved using the GDM while the outer optimization problem in one-bit ADCs can be explained by noting that
is solved using the B-bit grid search, thereby partitioning Θ √ √
into 2B uniform grid points. Then, the pML channel estimator Q( ρXc0 h0 + ñ) ≈ Q( ρXc0 h0 )
√
performs the GDM 2B times. In this paper, we assume that the = Q(k ρXc0 h0 ) (24)
pML channel estimator solves the inner and outer optimization in the high SNR regime where k > 0. According to (24),
problems of (20) using the GDM, which uses the backtracking the information embedded in k is indistinguishable in the
line search, and B-bit grid search, respectively. In Section V, high SNR regime because one-bit ADCs do not convey any
the computational complexity of the pML channel estimator magnitude information. Hence, we expect that the performance
is investigated by counting the number of real multiplications of the pML channel estimator falls as the SNR enters the high
performed. The explanation of how the number of real multi- SNR regime.
plications performed by the pML channel estimator is counted
is omitted because of the page limit. IV. MIPS-BASED C HANNEL E STIMATION
Before we proceed to the MIPS-based channel estimator, we In this section, we derive the MIPS-based channel estimator.
investigate the fundamental limit of one-bit ADCs in the high The problem of the pML channel estimator is that Lρ̃ (g00 , θ00 )
SNR regime through the lens of the pML channel estimator. has no explicit structure with respect to θ00 . Thus, the number
of convex optimization performed is proportional to the size
Lemma 1. kĥ0,pML k → 0 as ρ̃ → ∞ almost surely. of Θ. The MIPS-based channel estimator attempts to break
Proof. The goal of the proof is to show that kĝ this computational bottleneck by performing two-stage channel
√ 0,pML k → 0 estimation, which separates the search space into Θ and R2 . In
as ρ̃ → ∞ almost surely because kĥ0,pML k = M kĝ0,pML k.
Therefore, we proceed by showing that kĝρ̃ (θ00 )k → 0 as ρ̃ → this section, similar to the pML channel estimator, the MIPS-
∞ for any realization of ŷ evaluated at any θ00 where ĝρ̃ (θ00 ) based channel estimator considers ñ instead of n̄.
is defined as A. DOA Estimator
In this subsection, the first stage of the MIPS-based channel
ĝρ̃ (θ00 ) = argmaxLρ̃ (g00 , θ00 ). (21) estimator is described. In the first stage, θ0 is estimated in the
g00 ∈R2 search space Θ. Thus, we can interpret the problem as DOA
estimation in one-bit ADCs. In [8], DOA estimators for one-bit
First, consider ρ̃1 > 0 and ρ̃2 = k ρ̃1 where k > 0. From√(17), ADCs were proposed using the arcsine law, which relates the
observe that Lρ̃2 (g00 , θ00 ) = Lρ̃1 (g̃0 , θ00 ) where g̃0 = kg00 . covariance matrices of the quantized and unquantized received
signals using arcsine [12], [13]. In this paper, motivated by the Algorithm 1 MIPS-based channel estimator
approach of [8], we propose the MIPS DOA estimate of θ0 . 1: Find θ̂0,MIPS = argmax|(Xa(θ00 ))H ŷ|
To derive the MIPS DOA estimate of θ0 , we express θ0 in θ00 ∈Θ
terms of the conditional covariance matrix of ŷ given θ0 . The 2: Find ĝ0,MIPS = argmaxLρ̃ (g00 , θ̂0,MIPS )
g00 ∈R2
conditional covariance matrix of y given θ0 , namely Cy (θ0 ),
is 3: ĥ0,MIPS = ĝ0,MIPS a(θ̂0,MIPS )
√ √
Cy (θ0 ) = E{( ρXc0 h0 + ñ)( ρXc0 h0 + ñ)H |θ0 }
= ρc20 Xa(θ0 )a(θ0 )H XH + σ 2 IM N (25) to develop the DOA estimator. By replacing Cŷ (θ0 ) with Ĉŷ
in (30), we obtain the MIPS DOA estimate θ̂0,MIPS of θ0 ,
where n̄ was approximated by ñ. The diagonal matrix formed which is
π
by Cy (θ0 ) is denoted by Σy (θ0 ), which is θ̂0,MIPS = argmax(Xa(θ00 ))H sin Ĉŷ Xa(θ00 )
θ00 ∈Θ 2
Σy (θ0 ) = diag(Cy (θ0 )) π
= argmax(Xa(θ00 ))H sin ŷŷH Xa(θ00 )
= (ρc20 + σ 2 )IM N . (26) θ00 ∈Θ 2
(a)
Then, from the arcsine law, Cŷ (θ0 ), which is the conditional = argmax(Xa(θ00 ))H ŷŷH Xa(θ00 )
θ00 ∈Θ
covariance matrix of ŷ given θ0 , can be expressed by Cy (θ0 )
as = argmax|(Xa(θ00 ))H ŷ| (32)
θ00 ∈Θ
2
−1 −1
Cŷ (θ0 ) = arcsin Σy 2 (θ0 )Cy (θ0 )Σy 2 (θ0 ) (27) where (a) is a direct consequence of the fact that the elements
π
of ŷŷH are constrained to {1, −1, j, −j}. The reason why the
and vice versa, i.e., proposed DOA estimator is named the MIPS DOA estimator
1
π 1 follows from (32); the receiver estimates θ0 by searching for
Cy (θ0 ) = Σy2 (θ0 ) sin Cŷ (θ0 ) Σy2 (θ0 ) the steering vector which maximizes the inner product. To
2
2 2 π solve (32), an exhaustive search is required.
= (ρc0 + σ ) sin Cŷ (θ0 ) (28)
2 B. Channel Fading Coefficient Estimator
where arcsin(·) and sin(·) are the element-wise arcsine and In the second stage, g0 is estimated. The MIPS-based
sine functions applied to the real and imaginary parts, re- channel fading coefficient estimate ĝ0,MIPS of g0 is defined
spectively. In addition, based on the conventional beamformer as
approach, which attempts to maximize the output power [15], ĝ0,MIPS = argmaxLρ̃ (g00 , θ̂0,MIPS ) (33)
θ0 can be written as g00 ∈R2
MSE
10-1 10-1 ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by the Institute for Informa-
10-2 10-2
-5 0 5 10
SNR (dB)
15 20 -5 0 5 10
SNR (dB)
15 20 tion & communications Technology Promotion (IITP) un-
der grant funded by the MSIT of the Korea government
1 1
10 10
Proposed MIPS Proposed MIPS
(No.2018(2016-0-00123), Development of Integer-Forcing
ML ML
CRB CRB MIMO Transceivers for 5G & Beyond Mobile Communication
100 100
Systems).
MSE°
MSE
10-1 10-1
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