Performance analysis of large scale MU-MIMO with optimal linear receivers

We consider the uplink of multicell multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) systems with very large antenna arrays at the base station (BS). We assume that the BS estimates the channel through uplink training, and then uses this channel estimate to detect the signals transmitted from a multiplicity of autonomous users in its cell. By taking the correlation between the channel estimate and the interference from other cells into account, we propose an optimal linear receiver (OLR) which maximizes the received signal-to-interference-plus-noise (SINR). Analytical approximations of the exact and lower bound on the achievable rate are then derived. The bound is very tight, especially at large number of BS antennas. We show that at low SINR, maximal ratio combing (MRC) receiver performs as well as OLR, however at high SINR, OLR outperforms MRC. Compared with the typical minimum mean-square error receiver, our proposed OLR improves systematically the system performance, especially when the interference is large.