Cooperative Dynamic Angle of Arrival Estimation Considering Space-Time Correlations for Terahertz Communications

• Published in: IEEE transactions on wireless communications Vol. 17; no. 9; pp. 6029 - 6041
• Main Authors: Peng, Bile, Guan, Ke, Kurner, Thomas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.09.2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Adaptive arrays; Algorithms; Angle of arrival; Angle of arrival estimation; Antenna arrays; Antenna gain; Antennas; Bayes methods; Bayesian inference; belief propagation; Computer simulation; Correlation; Data transmission; Directive antennas; distributed antennas; Estimation; hybrid massive MIMO array; Hybrid systems; MIMO communication; Movement; sum-product algorithm; terahertz (THz) communications
• ISSN: 1536-1276; 1558-2248; 1558-2248
• DOI: 10.1109/TWC.2018.2854565

Angle of arrival (AoA) estimation is required by adaptive directive antennas in order to realize a high antenna gain, which is necessary for future indoor terahertz communications due to its extremely high path loss. This paper proposes an AoA estimation algorithm using belief propagation in a dynamic scenario, where the user equipment (UE) is moving during the data transmission, based on the space-time correlations of AoA change. The temporal correlation of AoA change is due to the limited moving speed and statistical movement pattern. Furthermore, if we have distributed antennas or hybrid massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) array, the AoA changes of different antennas reveal spatial correlation because all the AoA changes are caused by the same spatial displacement of UE. This spatial correlation is utilized in this paper to further improve the estimation accuracy by passing messages between antennas and combining the intrinsic estimate by each antenna and extrinsic information from other antennas. In order to demonstrate the algorithm performance, a distributed antenna system and a hybrid massive MIMO array (an array of multiple directive antenna arrays) are considered as application scenarios. The simulation results show that the cooperative estimation brings significant advantage in both scenarios in respect of mean effective antenna gain and level crossing rate.