Comparative study of channel estimators for massive MIMO 5G NR systems

• Published in: IET communications Vol. 14; no. 7; pp. 1175 - 1184
• Main Authors: Carrera, Diego Fernando, Vargas-Rosales, Cesar, Azpilicueta, Leyre, Galaviz-Aguilar, Jose Alejandro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Institution of Engineering and Technology 22.04.2020
• Subjects: 5G mobile communication; bit error rate; channel estimation; comparative analysis; cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division; diversity reception; equalisation; error statistics; error vector magnitude; fifth‐generation new radio frame structure; frequency 6.0 GHz; interference power; Kalman filter channel estimator; Kalman filters; KF estimator; least mean squares methods; least‐squares channel estimator; link‐level radio simulation; low signal‐to‐noise ratio scenarios; LS estimation; massive MIMO 5G NR systems; massive multiple‐input multiple‐output channel; maximum performance; maximum‐ratio combining; MIMO communication; minimum mean squared error channel estimator; MRC receiver; MSE; OFDM modulation; quasideterministic radio channel generator; radio receivers; radiofrequency interference; Research Article; RZF receiver; wireless channels; massive MIMO 5G NR systems; interference power; least mean squares methods; error vector magnitude; maximum-ratio combining; radiofrequency interference; comparative analysis; MRC receiver; quasideterministic radio channel generator; LS estimation; Kalman filter channel estimator; OFDM modulation; wireless channels; Kalman filters; MIMO communication; MSE; error statistics; maximum performance; diversity reception; 5G mobile communication; low signal-to-noise ratio scenarios; equalisation; radio receivers; bit error rate; KF estimator; RZF receiver; minimum mean squared error channel estimator; cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division; frequency 6.0 GHz; channel estimation; link-level radio simulation; massive multiple-input multiple-output channel; least-squares channel estimator; fifth-generation new radio frame structure
• ISSN: 1751-8628; 1751-8636; 1751-8636
• DOI: 10.1049/iet-com.2019.0973

In this work, a comparative analysis is performed to study the bit error rate and error vector magnitude achieved with the least-squares (LS), the minimum mean squared error (MSE), and the Kalman filter (KF) channel estimators when these are applied to the maximum-ratio combining (MRC) and the regularised zero-forcing (RZF) receivers. The MSE achieved with the different channel estimators was also compared by varying the noise and interference power at the receiver. The proposed methodology relies on the characterisation of a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel with a quasi-deterministic radio channel generator and a cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division multiplexing link-level radio simulation. The fifth-generation (5G) new radio (NR) frame structure was used to perform channel estimation and equalisation for operation frequencies below 6 GHz. Numerical results show that the MRC receiver achieves its maximum performance with the KF estimator, especially at low signal-to-noise ratio scenarios, while the RZF receiver achieves its maximum performance with the LS estimation even in high interference scenarios.