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352

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS, VOL. 15, NO. 4, AUGUST 2013

A Channel State Information Feedback Method for


Massive MIMO-OFDM
Riichi Kudo, Simon M. D. Armour, Joe P. McGeehan, and Masato Mizoguchi
Abstract: Combining multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) with a massive
number of transmit antennas (massive MIMO-OFDM) is an attractive way of increasing the spectrum efficiency or reducing the
transmission energy per bit. The effectiveness of Massive MIMOOFDM is strongly affected by the channel state information (CSI)
estimation method used. The overheads of training frame transmission and CSI feedback decrease multiple access channel (MAC)
efficiency and increase the CSI estimation cost at a user station
(STA). This paper proposes a CSI estimation scheme that reduces
the training frame length by using a novel pilot design and a novel
unitary matrix feedback method. The proposed pilot design and
unitary matrix feedback enable the access point (AP) to estimate
the CSI of the signal space of all transmit antennas using a small
number of training frames. Simulations in an IEEE 802.11n channel verify the attractive transmission performance of the proposed
methods.
Index Terms: Channel state information (CSI) estimation, massive
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), MIMO-orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM), multiuser MIMO,
wireless loca area network (LAN).

I. INTRODUCTION
Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) techniques are
widely employed in wireless communication systems since spatial multiplexing can increase spectral efficiency [1]. The number of antennas in cellular and wireless local area network
(LAN) systems is increasing and it is expected that this increase will continue in order to satisfy the demands for higher
throughputs. In systems where the access point (AP) has a massive number of antennas (massive MIMO) [2], [3], precoding techniques can increase the throughput and/or reduce the
transmission power by using channel state information (CSI).
Combining MIMO with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) is also promising since OFDM yields
frequency-flat MIMO channels.
Multiuser MIMO transmission (MU-MIMO) [3][5] is a key
technology for Massive MIMO systems in allow the AP better
access to the large signal space since the number of antennas at
the user station (STA) is restricted by the power consumption,
and the small antenna space available. MU-MIMO precoding
increases the spectrum efficiency of communication with multiManuscript received January 31, 2013.
R. Kudo and M. Mizoguchi are with NTT Network Innovation
Laboratories, Yokosuka, Japan, 239-0847, email:
{kudo.riichi, mizoguchi.masato}@lab.ntt.co.jp.
S. M. D. Armour and J. P. McGeehan are with the Center for Communications Research, University of Bristol, UK, email:{j.p.mcgeehan, Simon.Armour}@bristol.ac.uk.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JCN.2013.000066

ple user stations (STAs) that have fewer antennas. However, the
CSI at the AP must be accurate in order to reduce the inter-user
interference. Efficient CSI estimation is thus required in order
to implement MU-MIMO-OFDM for massive MIMO systems.
Closed-loop and open-loop CSI estimation methods have
been proposed. The open-loop approach uses the channel reciprocity and estimates the downlink CSI using the uplink CSI and
calibration techniques. This approach can be used only for time
division duplex (TDD) systems. If the calibration is perfectly
conducted, the open-loop approach is very attractive for massive MIMO systems. However, MU-MIMO transmission performance degrades if the calibration error increases CSI error at
the transmitter. Furthermore, it is difficult to exploit the channel
reciprocity in frequency division duplex (FDD) systems. This
paper focuses on the closed-loop approach to dispense with any
requirement for channel reciprocity. In the closed loop approach
for massive MIMO systems, the overhead of the training frames
for CSI estimation and the CSI feedback degrade the MAC efficiency.
To reduce the CSI feedback bits, time domain feedback was
proposed in [6], [7]. However, the accuracy of CSI in the time
domain is affected by the null data subcarriers demanded by
OFDM symbol design and a costly transformation into the time
domain is required at the STA. The alternative approaches,
CSI compression methods of channel matrices in frequency flat
channels were proposed in [8], [9]. It is known that CSI is effectively compressed by utilizing its characteristic of unitary matrices in complex Euclidean space [10]. CSI compression based
on a unitary matrix in the frequency domain is used in IEEE
802.11n [11]. Note that IEEE 802.11ac supports only unitary
matrix CSI compression for CSI feedback [12]. CSI feedback
methods for massive MIMO systems have been proposed in
[13]. CSI estimation in [13] needs to transmit as many OFDM
pilot symbols as there are transmit antennas to obtain full CSI.
This paper proposes a CSI estimation method that uses a
small number of long training frames (LTFs). Reducing the
number of pilot symbols reduces the CSI feedback overhead
and the computational loads for CSI estimation and transmission weight calculation. The proposed CSI estimation scheme
is based on the iterative CSI estimation of [14]. The iterative
CSI estimation scheme obtains the CSI for all transmit antennas
by using additional CSI estimation beams. Since the AP calculates the CSI estimation weight using the prior estimated CSI
and different code book vectors are used as the CSI estimation
weights of the additional beams, the performance of MU-MIMO
transmission using iterative CSI estimation approaches that of a
full antenna estimation, which transmits LTFs as many as the
number of transmit antennas. However, iterative CSI estimation
needs sufficient time duration to converge on the best transmis-

c 2013 KICS
1229-2370/13/$10.00

KUDO et al.: A CHANNEL STATE INFORMATION FEEDBACK METHOD FOR MASSIVE...

sion performance. To compensate this disadvantage, we use a


CSI aggregation scheme in conjunction with the iterative CSI estimation scheme. The CSI aggregation scheme combines small
unitary matrices which are fed back from the STAs based on a
novel pilot design and unitary matrix feedback method. The pilot design determines a selection of the CSI estimation weights
from the same code book. The different code book vectors are
chosen for each subcarrier in each CSI estimation. The STA estimates the subspace CSI corresponding to a small number of
LTFs at each subcarrier and the CSI estimation weight corresponding to the subspace CSI differs with the subcarrier. To
combine the subspace CSI, a unitary matrix feedback method
was proposed based on the feedback method of the right singular vectors presented in [9], [10]. Although the right singular
vectors at multiple subcarriers cannot be combined at the AP,
we found that the full rank CSI can be obtained by combining the unitary matrices that are the products of the right singular vectors and the left singular vectors. This CSI aggregation
scheme enables the AP to estimate full rank CSI by using the
pilot design and the unitary matrix feedback method. Since the
AP can estimate CSI corresponding to a wider signal space with
fewer LTFs, the convergence time duration of the iterative CSI
estimation is expected to be avoided. However, frequency selective fading causes CSI error in the CSI aggregation scheme
because of the combination of subspace CSI from multiple subcarriers. The iterative CSI estimation scheme is also expected to
improve the CSI accuracy by using an additional CSI estimation
weight. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed CSI estimation scheme, time varying channels and frequency selective
fading should be considered. Thus, the achievable bit rates are
evaluated by using MU-MIMO transmission in an IEEE 802.11n
channel model [15].
This paper is organized as follows. Section II describes
the conventional CSI estimation scheme and multiuser MIMO
transmission. Section III details the proposed CSI estimation
scheme for massive MIMO OFDM systems. Section IV shows
the computer simulation setup based on the IEEE 802.11n channel model. Section V summarizes the paper.
Throughout the paper, superscript H denotes Hermitian transposition. A1 and ||A|| denotes the pseudo inverse of A and
Frobenius norm of A, respectively. IN is an N N identity
matrix. E[a] and (a mod b) denote the expectation of a and the
remainder of the Euclidean division of a by b, respectively.
ACRONYMS
AP
BD
CLTF
CSI
CSI FB
FDD
LTF
MAC
MIMO
MU-MIMO
NDP

Access point
Block diagonalization
Codebook based LTF
Channel state information
CSI feedback
Frequency division duplex
Long training frame
Medium access control
Multiple input multiple output
Multiuser MIMO
Null data packet

353

NDPA
OFDM
QAM
STA
SVD

Null data packet announcement


Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
Quadrature amplitude modulation
Station
Singular value decomposition

II. SYSTEM MODEL


The numbers of transmit antennas at the AP and receive antennas at the STA are defined as Mt and Mr , respectively. The
number of active STAs is set to K. We focus on the high SNR
and massive MIMO scenario (Mt > KMr ). The downlink CSI
of the kth STA at the ith subcarrier is represented by channel
matrix Hk,i CMr Mt , where the number of data subcarriers is F and 1 i F . The AP transmits CSI estimation
pilots to the STAs using CSI estimation weights. The STAs estimate channel matrices and feed the CSI back to the AP. To
estimate full rank CSI, the AP needs to transmit Mt LTFs. The
pilot symbol matrix is defined as an Mt Mt diagonal matrix,
X0,i . The received signal matrix at STA k corresponding to the
LTFs, Y0,k,i CMr Mt , is given by

y0,k,i,1 y0,k,i,Mt
Y0,k,i =

P Hk,i A0 X0,i + N0,k,i


(1)
=
where A0 is an Mt Mt unitary matrix that satisfies AH
0 A0 =
IMt and y0,k,i,j is the received signal vector at the ith subcarrier of the jth pilot symbol (1 j Mt ). P is the transmission power at each subcarrier. The diagonal elements of X0,i
are expressed as x0,i and |x0,i |2 = 1. The noise variance of
N0,k,i C Mr Mt is 2 . Since the STA knows A0 and X0,i ,
the channel matrix corresponding to the CSI estimation beams
at the ith subcarrier for STA k, Gk,i CMr Mt , is estimated as
Gk,i

H
Y0,k,i X1
0,i A0

Hk,i + N0,k,i

(2)

where the noise variance of the elements in the noise matrix,


N0,k,i , is also expressed as 2 since X0,i and A0 are unitary
matrices. Thus, the estimated channel matrix includes thermal
noise CN (0, 2 ).
A. Unitary Matrix Compression Feedback
The unitary matrix compression feedback technique offers effective CSI compression and is supported in IEEE 802.11 TGn
and TGac [11], [12]. The kth STA calculates the right singular
vectors of the estimated channel matrix by singular value decomposition (SVD) as in
H
VN,k,i
(3)

where Uk,i CMr Mr and VS,k,i VN,k,i CMt Mt
are the left and right singular vectors, respectively, k,i is the
Mr Mr diagonal matrix whose
p diagonal
pelements are square
k,i,1 , , k,i,Mr . VS,k,i
roots of the eigenvalues;
CMt Mr is compressed and fed back to the AP in the uplink.
The right singular vectors, VS,k,i , are transformed into angles,
Gk,i = Uk,i

k,i

VS,k,i

354

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS, VOL. 15, NO. 4, AUGUST 2013


k,i CMr Mr and
N,k,i
S,k,i V
where U

V
C(Mt (K1)Mr )(Mt (K1)Mr ) are the left and right singular
k,i is the diagonal matrix. Transvectors, respectively, and

mission weight Wk,i is determined


p as QN,k,i VS,k,i . The norms
of its column vectors are set to P/KMr to ensure the equal
power allocation. To evaluate the performance of the CSI estimation scheme, the downlink performance is defined as the
achievable bit rate,

and as follows.

VS,k,i

ej11
0
..
.
0

0
..
.

..
.

ej(Mt 1)1
0

..

0
..
.

0
1

cos21 sin21
0

0
sin21 cos21
0
0
IMt 2

cosMt 1
0
sinMt 1

0
IMt 2
0

sinMt 1
0
cosMt 1


IMr

0

C=

(4)

B. Data Transmission Based on Block Diagonalization


The received signal vector at the kth STA, yk,i CMr 1 , is
given as
K
X

(5)

Hk,i Wj,i xj,i + nk,i

j=1
j6=k

where Wk,i CMt Mr , xk,i CMr 1 , and nk,i CMr 1 are


the transmission weight, transmission signal vector, and noise
vector for the kth STA at the ith subcarrier, respectively. The
lth element of xk,i , are expressed as xk,i,l and the expectation
of |xk,i,l |2 is set to 1. In this paper, equal power allocation is
used and the number of spatial data streams for the kth STA
is set to Mr . The norm of the jth column vector of transmission weight Wk,i , ||wk,i,j ||2 is P/(KMr ). As a practical suboptimum linear precoding approach, the block diagonalization
(BD) algorithm [4] is applied. The AP calculates the transmission weight using the right singular vectors which are fed back
from the STAs. In the BD algorithm, the null space vectors at
the ith subcarrier for the kth STA, are defined by QR decomposition as

VS,1,i VS,k1,i VS,k+1,i VS,K,i


 RS,k,i
(6)
= QS,k,i QN,k,i
0


where QS,k,i QN,k,i is the Mt Mt unitary matrix and
RS,k,i is the (K 1)Mr (K 1)Mr upper triangular matrix.
The signal space vectors QS,k,i CMt (K1)Mr correspond to
the signal space for the other STAs, and the null space vectors,
QN,k,i CMt (Mt (K1)Mr ) , correspond to the zero matrix in
(6). Since QN,k,i is orthogonal to VS,j,i j 6= k, the inter-user
interference can be cancelled by using QN,k,i . Next, SVD is
conducted for the channel matrix in the null space as
H
k,i
VS,k,i
QN,k,i = U

k,i

S,k,i
V

N,k,i
V

H

BF log2 det IMr

i=1 k=1

where 0 /2 and 0 2. and are quantized


by using Nbit 2 and Nbit bits, respectively.

yk,i = Hk,i Wk,i xk,i +

F X
K
X

(7)

H
Wk,i
HH
k,i Hk,i Wk,i
+
P
K
H HH H W ||2
2
+ j=1 ||Wj,i
j,i
k,i k,i
j6=k

(8)

where BF is the bandwidth of each subcarrier and the interuser interference is assumed to be zero-mean complex Gaussian. Note that this does not consider the feedback overhead,
guard interval, and uplink transmission.
III. PROPOSED CSI ESTIMATION SCHEME
In the proposed CSI estimation scheme, the AP transmits MP
(n)
LTFs by using the CSI estimation weight T0,i CMt MP for
the ith subcarrier. The proposed CSI estimation scheme consists of two schemes; one is an iterative CSI estimation scheme
and the other is a CSI aggregation scheme. It was shown that
the transmission performance of iterative CSI estimation approaches that of full CSI estimation with Mt LTFs in [13]. The
iterative CSI estimation scheme estimates full rank CSI by using additional CSI estimation weight based on a code book. The
problem of the iterative CSI estimation scheme is that it takes
time to converge on the best transmission performance. The CSI
aggregation scheme combines subspace CSI at multiple subcarriers to calculate the CSI estimation weight for the next CSI estimation. Since the CSI aggregation combination enables the AP
to estimate the CSI corresponding to a wider signal space, it is
expected that the CSI aggregation scheme can avoid the problem
of iterative CSI estimation.
In this paper, we consider constant data transmission with the
STAs. To conduct MU-MIMO transmission, CSI estimation is
conducted before data transmission. The time interval of CSI
estimation is set to T0 . The CSI estimation weight for the ith
(n)
subcarrier is defined as T0,i , where n denotes how many CSI
estimations have been conducted. The received signal matrix at
(n)
STA k for the nth CSI estimation, Y0,k,i CMr MP , is given
by


(n)
(n)
(n)
Y0,k,i =
y0,k,i,1 y0,k,i,MP
=

(n)

Hk,i T0,i A0 X0,i + N0,k,i

(9)

where A0 is an MP MP unitary matrix that satisfies AH


0 A0 =
(n)
IMP , X0,i is an MP MP diagonal matrix, T0,i is an Mt MP

CSI estimation weight, and y0,i,j is the received signal vector at


the ith subcarrier of the jth pilot symbol (1 j MP ). The
(n)
(n)
norm of each column vector of T0,i is set to satisfy ||t0,i,j ||2 =
(n)

KUDO et al.: A CHANNEL STATE INFORMATION FEEDBACK METHOD FOR MASSIVE...

P . The noise variance of N0,k,i CMr MP is 2 . Since the


STA knows A0 and X0,i , the subspace channel matrix corresponding to CSI estimation beams at the ith subcarrier for STA
(n)
k, Gk,i CMr MP , is estimated as
(n)

Gk,i

(n)

H
= Y0,k,i X1
0,i A0
(n)

= Hk,i T0,i + N0,k,i

355

vectors of the of the subspace channel matrix, respectively. We


(n) H

can see the Hermitian transposition of VP,k,i , Uk,i VS,k,i , is


(n)

identical with Gk,i when k,i is an identity matrix. The differ(n)

(n)

(n) H

ences between Gk,i and VP,k,i


(n)

are caused by the distribution

of eigenvalues (diagonal elements of k,i ). The characteristic


(n)

(10)

where the noise variance of the elements in the noise matrix,


N0,k,i , is also expressed as 2 since X0,i and A0 are unitary
matrices.

of VP,k,i is described in Section IV.


(n)

B. CSI Estimation Weight Design

In the proposed CSI estimation scheme, the AP prepares an


Mt Mt code book, R = (eR,1 , , eR,Mt ), which is calculated as the right singular vectors of the random Gaussian chanA. Proposed Unitary Matrix Compression Feedback
nel matrix RG CMt Mt . The CSI estimation weight calcuTo shorten the convergence time needed to obtain full rank lations are divided into two cases; the first case is for the first
CSI in the proposed scheme, modified unitary matrix feedback CSI estimation (n = 1) where all the CSI estimation weight
corresponding to the subspace channel matrix is proposed. The vectors are chosen from the code book because the AP has no
subspace unitary matrix for feedback in the proposal is obtained CSI, and the second case is for the second and subsequent CSI
by multiplication of the right and left singular vectors of the estimations where the transmission weights of Mr K LTFs are
(n)
subspace channel matrix. The subspace unitary matrix, VP,k,i calculated as signal-space CSI estimation weight by using the
CSI obtained in the previous CSI estimation and those of Ncode
CMP Mr , is expressed as
LTFs
chosen from the code book as an additional CSI estimation
"
 12 #H
weight.
The iterative CSI estimation revises CSI by changing
H
H
H
(n)
(n)
(n)
(n) (n)
(n)
. (11) the additional CSI estimation weight to combat the time varyVP,k,i = VS,k,i Uk,i = Gk,i
Gk,i Gk,i
ing channel. Thus, the requirement of the CSI estimation weight
calculation depends on the relevant case. The CSI estimation
(n)
Since the matrix size of VP,k,i is the same as that of VS,k,i , the
weight for the second CSI estimation (n = 2) should use the
increase in feedback bit amount is only the additional Mr angles.
CSI corresponding to a wider signal space because the AP has
(n)
The subspace unitary matrix, VP,k,i , is transformed into angles, no CSI. The CSI estimation weight for third and subsequent CSI
and as follows.
estimations must be calculated by using more accurate CSI than
j11

the outdated CSI.


e
0

0
The first CSI estimation weight is selected from code book

..
..
..
0
.
.
.
R . The CSI estimation weight at the ith subcarrier for the first

VS,k,i = .

..
estimation is given by
..
. ej(Mt 1)1 0


(1)
0

0
1
(14)
T0,i = P eR,b[i,1] eR,b[i,MP ]

cos21 sin21
0
where b[i, j] is defined as the selected vector of R for the CSI

0
sin21 cos21
estimation weight vector at the jth codebook-based-LTF (CLTF)
0
0
IMt 2
at the ith subcarrier. b[i, j] is given by

cosMt 1
0
sinMt 1
(


0
IMt 2
0

b[i, j] = 1 + b[i, j 1] + Ng [n] mod Mt

(15)
sinMt 1
0
cosMt 1
b[i, 1] = 1 + i 1 mod Mt
j1

e
0

where Ng [n] denotes the vector number shift in each LTF at


.
..

the
nth CSI estimation. Table 1 shows the case where F = 52,
0
ejMr

Mt = 32, and Ng [n] = 4. When the AP transmits eight CLTFs



(12)
0

0
based on Table 1, the AP can estimate the CSI corresponding

..
..
to all code book vectors by using the fed back unitary matri ..

.
.
ces in 4 neighboring subcarriers. It can be seen that the first to
0

0
eighth CLTFs contain the 1st to 32nd code book vectors. When
where Mr angles, 1 , , Mr , are added to (4). The subspace Ng [n] is greater than four, the AP obtains CSI corresponding to
(n)
all transmit antennas, which contains CSI corresponding to the
channel matrix Gk,i CMr MP is expressed by SVD as in
same code book vectors at different times and different subcarriers.
(n)
(n) H (n) H (n) H
Gk,i = Uk,i k,i Vk,i
(13)
When n is greater than 1, the CSI estimation weight is calculated
as
(n)
(n)
where k,i CMr Mr is the diagonal matrix and Uk,i


(n)
(n)
(n)
(16)
T0,i = P T(n)
E i
CMr Mr and VS,k,i CMt Mr are the left and right singular
i

356

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS, VOL. 15, NO. 4, AUGUST 2013



(n)
(n)
(n)
CMt KMr
=
where Ti
ti,1 ti,KMr
is the signal-space CSI estimation weight which is calculated by using CSI fed back from the STAs and
(n)
E i = ( eR,b[i,MP +(n1)Ncode +1] eR,b[i,MP +nNcode ] )
CMt Ncode is an additional CSI estimation weight which is calculated using the selected code book vectors (b[i, MP + (n
(n)
1)Ncode + 1] to b[i, MP + nNcode ]). The calculation of Ti
(n)
and E i are described in the next subsection. Unlike all col(1)
umn vectors of T0,i are chosen from the code book, the signalspace CSI estimation Ti is calculated by the CSI corresponding to MP Ng [1] CSI estimation beams. Thus, the CSI obtained
(2)
by T0,i corresponds to greater than MP Ng [1] CSI estimation

Table 1. Rank enhancement pilot design for (Mt , Ng , F ) = (32, 5, 52).

(2)

beams. Since the obtained CSI corresponding to Ti n 2


includes CSI for a wider signal space at each subcarrier, Ng [n]
n 2 should be small to improve the CSI accuracy. After
the second CSI estimation, the additional CSI estimation weight
works for the sake of preventing the performance degradation
due to outdated CSI. The pilot design in (15) avoids a selection
of same code book vectors at the first CSI estimation (n = 1)
and the subsequent CSI estimations (n 2).
(n)

C. CSI Aggregation Scheme


, is calThe signal-space CSI estimation weight, Ti
(n)
culated by the subspace unitary matrix, VP,k,i , which is
fed back from the STAs in the nth CSI estimation. The
signal-space CSI estimation weight is calculated to maximize
PK
(n+1) 2
|| . Thus, the right singular vectors of the
k=1 ||Hk,i Ti
aggregate channel matrix (HT1,i HTK,i )T are optimal as the
CSI estimation weight. The right singular vectors are given by
the SVD of the aggregate channel matrix as
(n+1)

H1,i
..
. = UA,i
HK,i

A,i

VSA,i

VNA,i

H

(17)

(n)

(n)

(n)
VA,i

(n)
Ei

(n)
QSA,i

(n)
QNA,i

(n)

RA,i
0

(19)


(n)
where Ei = eR,b[i,MP +(n1)Ncode +1] eR,b[i,MP +nNcode ]
(n)
is the code book vectors at ith subcarrier, QSA,i is the Mt

(KMr +Ncode ) matrix, QNA,i is the Mt (Mt KMr +Ncode )


(n)

matrix, and RA,i is the (KMr +Ncode )(KMr +Ncode ) upper


triangular matrix. The CSI estimation weight is given by



(n)
(n)
(n)
.
(20)
T0,i = P QSA,i = P T(n)
E
i
i
(n)

(n) H

If Gk,i


where UA,i CKMr KMr and VSA,i VNA,i CMt Mt
are the left and right singular vectors, respectively, and A,i is
the KMr KM
VSA,i is identical to
 When
r diagonal matrix.
PK
(n+1) 2
(n+1)
(n+1)
H
|| is
= 1, k=1 ||Hk,i Ti
and det VSA,i Ti
Ti
PK
2
maximized and becomes P k=1 ||Hk,i || .
The CSI aggregation scheme estimates VSA,i of the aggregate channel matrix as the CSI estimation weight at the ith
(n)
subcarrier for the (n + 1)th CSI estimation by using VP,k,i in
Ng [n] subcarriers. The aggregate matrix for the ith subcarrier,
VA,i CMt (KMr ) is defined as

is used instead of VP,k,i in (18) and the channel is


(n)

(n)

flat-fading and static, Ti approaches the right singular vectors


of the aggregate channel matrix, VSA,i .
To simplify the discussion, two parameters for Ng [n] are defined; Ng1 is for the first CSI estimation (Ng [1] = Ng1 ) and
Ng2 is for subsequent CSI estimations (Ng [n] = Ng2 n 2).
In the first CSI estimation, the AP needs CSI corresponding to
a wider signal space because the AP has no CSI of the STAs.
On the contrary, the AP needs more accurate CSI at the other
CSI estimations because the AP has CSI corresponding to all
the signal space.
D. Transmission Weight Calculation
The transmission weight is calculated as for the conventional
(n)
method but VP,k,i is used instead of VS,k,i . Since the estimated

(n)

VA,i = TA,i VPA,i




(n)
= T0,S[i,1] T0,S[i,Ng [n]]

(n)
(n)
VP,K,S[i,1]
VP,1,S[i,1]

..
..
..

.
.
.

(n)
(n)
VP,1,S[i,Ng [n]] VP,K,S[i,Ng [n]]

where {S[i, 1], , S[i, Ng [n]]} denotes a subcarrier group for


the ith subcarrier, which consists of Ng [n] subcarriers neigh(n)
bouring the ith subcarrier, TA,i CMt Ng [n]MP is the nth total
CSI estimation weight matrix which belongs to the ith subcar(n)
rier group, VPA,i CNg [n]MP KMr is the aggregated matrix of
the subspace unitary matrices. An example of subcarrier group
S[i, j] with Ng [n] of 5 is given in Table 2.
To
 vectors, QR decomposition is conducted
 obtain the basis
(n)
(n)
as
for VA,i Ei

CSI by the CSI aggregation scheme contains error, VA,i cannot


be used for the multiuser MIMO transmission weight but the
single-user MIMO transmission or the CSI estimation weight.
In the BD algorithm, the null space vectors at the ith subcarrier
for the kth STA, are defined by QR decomposition as
(n)

(18)

KUDO et al.: A CHANNEL STATE INFORMATION FEEDBACK METHOD FOR MASSIVE...

357

Table 2. Subcarrier group for aggregate unitary matrices when Ng [n] =


5.

p
p

(n)

VP,1,i

(n)

. . . VP,k1,i
=

(n)
QSW,k,i

(n)

. . . VP,K,i

(n)
QNW,k,i

VP,k+1,i

(n)

(n)

RW,k,i
0

(21)

Fig. 1. Channel power by using estimated right singular vectors of the


proposed subspace unitary matrices calculation in a 32 2 MIMO
channel.



(n)
where Q(n)
is the MP MP unitary maQ
SW,k,i
NW,k,i
trix, and RW,k,i is the (K 1)Mr (K 1)Mr upper triangular matrix. The signal space vectors QSW,k,i CMP (K1)Mr
correspond to the signal space for the other STAs, and the null
(n)
space vectors, QNW,k,i CMP (MP (K1)Mr ) , correspond to
the zero matrix. SVD is conducted for the channel matrix in the
null space as
H

(n)
(n)
P,k,i
VP,k,i QNW,k,i = U

P,k,i

SP,k,i
V

NP,k,i
V

H

p
p

(22)


P.k,i CMr Mr and
NP,k,i
SP,k,i V

where U
V
C(MP (K1)Mr )(MP (K1)Mr are the left and right singular
P,k,i is the diagonal matrix. Since
vectors, respectively, and
the matrix sizes of (21) and (22) are less than those in (6) and
(7), the complexity of calculating the transmission weight is
less than that of the conmventional system. Transmission weight
(n)
SP,k,i . The
Wk,i CMt Mr is determined as T0,i QNW,k,i V
p
norms of its column vectors are set to P/KMr .
IV. EIGENVECTOR ESTIMATION USING SUBSPACE
EIGENVECTORS

Since VP,k,i does not have the information of channel power,


(n)

VA,i does not approach the right singular vectors of the aggregate channel matrix, VSA,i . In this section, the basic characteristic of the CSI aggregation scheme is evaluated. Consider the
flat fading channel between the single transmitter and the single receiver. The channel matrix is expressed as an Mr Mt
random complex Gaussian matrix H. The mean and covariance
values of the elements of H are assumed to be zero and one,
respectively. Here, H is divided into Ng matrices as

H = H1 H2 HN g
(23)
(n)

where the matrix size of Hk is Mr MP and Ng is equal to


Mt /MP . Here MP is set to be greater than Mr . SVD of H and

Fig. 2. Channel power by using estimated right singular vectors of the


proposed subspace unitary matrices calculation in a 128 2 MIMO
channel.

Hk are given by
H
Hk

=
=

U
Uk

VS


VN

VS,k

H

VN,k

(24)
H

(25)

where U CMr Mr and Uk CMr Mr are the left singular vectors, ( VS VN ) CMt Mt and ( VS,k VN,k )
CMP MP are the right singular vectors, and and k are the
singular matrices of an Mr Mr diagonal matrix, for H and Hk ,
respectively. The conventional CSI estimation is equivalent with
the case where the right singular vectors of the channel matrix
are available at the transmitter, while the proposed CSI estimation corresponds to the case where the modified unitary matrices
of the divided channel matrices are available at the transmitter.
The MP Mr modified unitary matrix is given by
VP,k = VS,k UH
k .

(26)

By using the modified unitary matrices, the transmitter tries to


provide the right singular vectors of the channel matrix. The ag-

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JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS, VOL. 15, NO. 4, AUGUST 2013

gregate matrix, VA CMt Mr , is given by

VP,1

..
VA =
.
.

(27)

VP,Ng

Next, QR decomposition is conducted for VA as




 RA
VA = QSA QNA
0

(28)

Fig. 3. CSI estimation sequence.

where ( QSA QNA ) is the Mt Mt unitary matrix, and RA


is the upper triangular matrix. QSA is expected to have a high
correlation with VS . To show the correlation between QSA and
VS , the channel power multiplied with QSA and VS are given
by
P0 = ||H||2 = ||HVS ||2 ,

PP = ||HQSA ||2 .

(29)

Fig. 1 shows the CDF of the channel powers when there are 32
transmit and 2 receive antennas. The median value of P0 is 18.0
dB, which corresponds to the channel matrix size of 32 2 (=
64). When VA is calculated by using two sets of the modified
unitary matrices of the two subspace channel matrices in (27)
(Ng = 2, MP = 16), the decrease in the median value of the
channel power is only 0.066 dB. This fall increases as the number of subspaces increases. The decreases in the median values
are 0.21, 0.50, and 1.19 dB for the divided subspace numbers
(Ng ) of 4, 8, and 16, respectively. Thus, the channel power decreases are less than 1 dB while the number of LTFs should be
no less than eight for the 32 2 matrix. Fig. 2 shows the CDFs
for the transmit antenna number of 128. The channel power decreases become very small when the transmit antenna number
becomes large. The channel power decreases are 0.018, 0.049,
0.12, and 0.26 dB for the divided subspace numbers (Ng ) of 2, 4,
8, and 16, respectively. Even if the CSI estimation weight is calculated by using sixteen modified unitary matrices (Ng = 16),
the decrease in channel power is very slight. The channel power
decrease is caused by insufficient information about the eigenvalues. The channel power decrease strengthens as the differences between the eigenvectors of the divided channel matrices
increases. In other words, the decrease does not occur if all divided channel matrices have the same eigenvalues. The eigenvalue differences decrease as the number of the elements of the
divided channel matrix increases. Thus, the proposed modified
unitary matrix feedback becomes more effective as the transmit
antenna number increases.
V. TIME DURATION OF CSI ESTIMATION
To show the impact of the proposed CSI estimation scheme
on MAC efficiency, the time required for CSI estimation is evaluated based on the IEEE 802.11ac standard [12]. The transmission sequence is summarized in Fig. 3, where NF is the number
of OFDM symbols transmitted by the STA for CSI feedback.
The AP first transmits a null data packet announcement (NDPA)
and then a null data packet (NDP) for CSI estimation. NDP contains LTFs as expressed by (1) and (9) The STA then estimates
the CSI from the received NDP and feeds back the CSI to the

Fig. 4. CSI estimation time, TCSI for (Mr , K) = (2, 3).

AP via CSI feedback (CSI FB). In NDP, the conventional full


antenna estimation approach requires as many pilot OFDM symbols as there are transmit antennas (MP = Mt ) while the proposed scheme reduces the number (MP < Mt ). The time duration for CSI estimation, TCSI , versus the number of the transmit
antennas is shown in Fig. 4, where it is assumed that the uplink
transmission from the STA to the AP uses 64QAM, 3/4 coding
rate, and 2 spatial streams, and the bit amounts for and are
set to 7 and 9 bits (Nbit = 9), respectively. It is found that the
CSI estimation time for the conventional full rank CSI estimation increases with transmit antenna number. The time durations
for conventional CSI estimation are 1.03 ms, 1.80 ms, and 3.27
ms for transmit antenna numbers of 16, 32, and 64, respectively.
The time durations of the proposed CSI estimation scheme are
also shown for the cases where the number of LTFs is set to
eight (MP = 8) and is set to be one fourth of the transmit antenna number (MP = Mt /4). The time durations (for transmit
antenna numbers of 16, 32, and 64, respectively) of the proposed
method with MP of 8 are 64%, 37%, and 20% of the conventional method, and with MP of Mt /4 are 46%, 37%, and 31%
of the conventional. The proposed method significantly reduces
the time duration for the CSI estimation.
VI. ACHIEVABLE BIT RATE EVALUATION
Two channel models are used to cover a low delay spread scenario and large delay spread scenario. In the low delay and large
delay spread scenarios, IEEE 802.11n channel models C and E

KUDO et al.: A CHANNEL STATE INFORMATION FEEDBACK METHOD FOR MASSIVE...

359

t
g1

g2
g2

g1

Fig. 5. Channel correlation versus subcarrier interval in channel models


C and E.

[15] are used and the distance between the AP and STAs is set to
5 m and 20 m, respectively. The average delay spreads in channel models C and E are 30 ns and 100 ns, respectively. The correlation between the channel matrix at neighbouring subcarriers
are shown in Fig. 5. The correlation value is calculated as
#
"
|hk,i,j hH
k,i+i,j |
(30)
=E
||hk,i,j ||||hk,i+i,j ||
where hk,i,j is jth row vector of the channel matrix Hk,i and i
is a subcarrier interval. It is found that the channel correlation in
channel model E is much less than that in channel model C. The
Doppler spread of the Bell-shape Doppler spectrum is set to 0.41
Hz to satisfy the coherence time of 800 ms in IEEE 802.11ac
[16]. The numbers of transmit antennas, receive antennas, STAs,
and subcarriers are set to 32, 2, 3, and 52 (Mt = 32, Mr =
2, K = 3, and F = 52). In the proposed CSI estimation scheme,
eight LTFs are used to estimate the channel matrices (MP = 8)
and CSI estimation weight in the first CSI estimation are chosen
from the code book. After the second CSI estimation, KMr CSI
estimation weight vectors are calculated by using the obtained
CSI (KMr = 6) and Ncode CSI weight vectors are chosen from
the code book (Ncode = 2, and MP = KMr + Ncode = 8).
Since the 8 2 unitary matrices are fed back to the AP and the
AP generates the matrices using (18), this condition corresponds
to the case of Ng = 4 in Fig. 1. The radio frequency and the
bandwidth of each subcarrier were 5.2 GHz and 312.5 kHz (BF
= 3.125 105 ), respectively. For unitary matrix feedback, the
quantization bit number Nbit was set to 9 bits.
200 channel sets were generated and Figs. 6 and 7 show the
median values of achievable bit rates versus time for the low
and high delay spread scenarios, respectively. The x axis denotes the elapsed time after the first CSI estimation. The time
interval of CSI estimation and data transmission was set to 6
ms (T0 = 6). The delay between CSI estimation and transmission was set to 1 ms for all methods and block fading was assumed. Fig. 6 shows the median achievable bit rates of the proposed CSI estimation method with Ng1 of 4 and Ng2 of 3, the
conventional iterative CSI estimation (the same as the proposal

Fig. 6. The median value of achievable bit rates with CSI estimation
interval of 6 ms for 3 STAs in 32 2 MIMO in a low delay spread
channel.

t
g2

g1
g1

g2

Fig. 7. The median value of achievable bit rates with CSI estimation
interval of 6 ms for 3 STAs in 32 2 MIMO in a high delay spread
channel.

with Ng1 of 1 and Ng2 of 1), and the conventional full rank CSI
estimation in 32 2 MIMO with MP of 32. As a reference,
the achievable bit rate of full rank CSI estimation with the transmit antenna number as the LTF number of the proposal (8 2
MIMO) is also shown. By using the proposed pilot design and
feedback method, high transmission performance was obtained
after the second data transmission, while the conventional iterative CSI estimation needs time to converge to achieve high
transmission performance. The transmission performance of the
proposed method at the first data transmission is almost the same
as that of the full CSI estimation for the transmit antenna number
of eight (Mt = 8) because the CSI estimation weight of the first

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JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS, VOL. 15, NO. 4, AUGUST 2013

eight LTFs is determined by only the code book without CSI.


The median values of achievable bit rates at the second transmission and the converged transmission in the proposed CSI
scheme are 98.3% and 98.7% those in full rank CSI estimation
for the low delay spread scenario, and 97.5% and 98.6% those in
full rank CSI estimation for the large delay spread scenario, respectively. It is found that the frequency selective fading slightly
degrades the effectiveness of the proposed method. For a linear
MU-MIMO transmission scheme such as BD, the data transmission weight is calculated by using CSI at each subcarrier. If the
aggregation matrix calculation in (18) is used for the data transmission weight, large inter-user interference occurs because the
obtained CSI is erroneous due to frequency selective fading.
indent Figs. 8 and 9 shows the median values of the achievable
bit rates versus the subcarrier number, Ng1 and Ng2 . The x axis
denotes Ng1 for the second data transmission and Ng2 for the
converged data transmission. We can see that the achievable
bit rates at the second data transmission are maximized when
Ng1 is four for low and high delay spread channel models. The
CSI corresponding to all transmit dimensions can be obtained
at the first CSI estimation when Ng1 is equal to or greater than
four. This result shows that the estimation error is reduced by
using multiple CSI corresponding to the same code book vector by using large Ng1 . Although the achievable bit rates with
Ng1 4 are high compared to that with Ng1 of 1, it can be
seen that the achievable bit rate with Ng1 of eight has a local
minimum. This performance degradation occurs because Mt is
a common divisor of Ng1 MP and is less than Ng1 MP . The consequence of this relationship is that code vectors are repeated
every Mt /Ng1 OFDM symbols. For example, the code book
vectors for 8 LTFs at the first subcarrier are expressed as [1], [9],
[17], [25]. Although the CSI at the same subcarrier is the most
accurate among CSI at the neighbouring subcarriers, this pilot
design uses the same CSI estimation weight at the same subcarrier. Thus, the AP chooses Ng1 to use different code book vectors for the same subcarrier at the first CSI estimation (n = 1).
In the high delay spread scenario, the performance degradation
due to the increase of Ng1 is greater than that in the low delay
spread scenario because of the high frequency selective fading.
In converged transmission, the achievable bit rates are maximized when Ng1 is 3 for the low delay spread scenario and 1
for the high delay spread scenario. It is found that the achievable bit rates with Ng2 as an even number are less than those
with Ng2 as an odd number. When Ng2 and Mt have a common
divisor, the codebook vector selection rule in (15) does not select
all codebook vectors at each subcarrier. Thus, CSI corresponding to some codebook vectors is always estimated in the other
subcarriers and the CSI error degrades the achievable bit rates.
When Ng2 is set to a large value, the required time to estimate
CSI corresponding to all the codebook vectors is reduced. Thus,
the performance degradation due to the time varying channel is
reduced, while the CSI error caused by the frequency selective
fading is increased.
VII. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a CSI estimation scheme for massive
MIMO-OFDM systems that uses a novel pilot design and

trans.
trans.

Fig. 8. The median value of achievable bit rates at the 2nd data transmission with CSI estimation interval of 6 ms versus the number of
subcarriers, Ng1 or Ng2 , for 3 STAs in 32 2 MIMO in a low delay
spread channel.

trans.
trans.

Fig. 9. The median value of achievable bit rates at the 2nd data transmission with CSI estimation interval of 6 ms versus the number of
subcarriers, Ng1 or Ng2 , for 3 STAs in 32 2 MIMO in a high delay
spread channel.

the unitary matrix feedback of left and right singular vectors.


The proposed scheme is based on the iterative CSI estimation
scheme and calculates the CSI estimation weights using the unitary matrices at multiple subcarriers, which correspond to different CSI estimation weights. The proposed scheme prevents the
number of LTFs from increasing as the transmit antenna number increases and enables full rank CSI estimation from a limited
number of LTFs. A computer simulation showed the effectiveness of the proposed CSI estimation scheme in low and high de-

KUDO et al.: A CHANNEL STATE INFORMATION FEEDBACK METHOD FOR MASSIVE...

lay spread scenarios. When considering the MU-MIMO transmission with 3 user stations using eight LTFs in 32 2 MIMOOFDM systems, the median values of achievable bit rates of
the second data transmission in the proposed method are 98.3%
and 97.5% those of full CSI estimation scheme, and those of
the converged data transmission are 98.7% and 98.6% those of
full CSI estimation scheme in the low and large delay spread
scenarios, respectively. In the MU-MIMO transmission with 3
user stations in 32 2 MIMO OFDM systems, the time duration taken by proposed CSI estimation scheme with eight LTFs
is reduced to just 37% of that for the full CSI estimation. The
effectiveness of the proposed CSI estimation scheme is expected
to rise with the number of transmit antennas.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors appreciate Mr. Kazuyasu Okada, the former Executive Manager of NTT Network Innovation Laboratories, for
his constant encouragement.

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361

Riichi Kudo received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in


Geophysics from Tohoku University, Japan in 2001
and 2003, respectively. He received the Ph.D. degree in Informatics from Kyoto university in 2010. In
2003, he joined NTT Network Innovation Laboratories, Yokosuka, Japan. He has been engaged in the
MIMO communication systems and the beamforming method. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Center
for Communications Research (CCR), Bristol University, Bristol, UK from 2012 to 2013. He received the
Young Engineer Award from IEICE in 2006, IEEE
AP-S Japan Chapter Young Engineer Award in 2010, and the Best Paper Award
from IEICE in 2011. His current research interest is multiuser MIMO techniques
for wireless LAN systems. He is a Member of IEEE.

Simon M. D. Armour received the B.Eng. degree


from the University of Bath, Bath, U.K. in 1996
and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Bristol, Bristol, U.K. in 2001. He has been an Academic at the University of Bristol since 2001 and
has held the post of Senior Lecturer since 2007.
He has published over 100 papers in the field of
baseband PHY layer and MAC layer techniques for
wireless communications, with particular focus on
orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing, coding,
multiple-input-multiple-output, and cross layer multiuser radio resource management strategies. He has investigated such techniques in general terms as well as specific applications to 802.11, 802.16, and
Third-Generation Partnership Project Long-Term Evolution.

Joe P. McGeehan received the Ph.D. and D.Eng. degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from
the University of Liverpool, Liverpool, U.K. in 1971
and 2003, respectively. He is currently a Director of
the Centre for Communication Research, University
of Bristol, Bristol, U.K. and Senior General Advisor
of Toshibas Telecommunications Research Laboratory. Since 1973, he has been researching spectrumefficient mobile-radio communication systems and
has pioneered work in many areas including linearized
power amplifiers, wideband code-division multiple
access (3G), and smart antennas. Dr. McGeehan has served on numerous international committees and was advisor to the UKs first DTI/MOD Defence
Spectrum Review Committee in the late 1970s. In 2004, he was listed as one of
the worlds top technology agenda setters by silicon.com. He was joint recipient
of the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology Neal Shepherd Memorial
Award for work on SMART Antennas, and the IEE Proceedings Mountbatten
Premium for work on satellite-tracking. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy
of Engineering and received recognition as a Commander of the British Empire
(CBE) in 2004 for services to the communications industry.

Masato Mizoguchi was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1965.


He received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in Electrical
Engineering from Tokyo University of Science, Japan
in 1989 and 1991, respectively. In 1991, he joined
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT)
and was mainly engaged in the research and development of personal communication systems and high
data rate wireless LANs including IEEE 802.11a systems. He is currently a Senior Research Engineer, Supervisor in the Wireless Systems Innovation Laboratory of NTT Network Innovation Laboratories, where
he is targeting future wireless broadband and ubiquitous systems. He received
the Young Researchers Award in 1998, the Best Paper Award in 2000 and the
Achievement Award in 2006 from IEICE. He is a Member of IEEE.

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