Massive MIMO Downlink Based on Single Carrier Frequency Domain Processing

In this paper, we investigate the suitability of single carrier frequency domain processing (SC-FDP) as the downlink transmission scheme in a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. By deriving the sum-rate of the SC-FDP massive MIMO system theoretically, we show that this method obtains a sum-rate similar to that of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) massive MIMO. We also derive the theoretical sum-rate of both SC-FDP and OFDM in a non-synchronized massive MIMO scenario and show that the rate of the former is significantly larger than that of the latter. Moreover, we theoretically analyze the sum-rate of both systems in the presence of power amplifier non-linearity. All the sum-rates are derived for both zero forcing and matched filter precoding schemes. The results show that the effect of power amplifier non-linearity on the sum-rate of both systems is similar when the number of users is large. We also compare SC-FDP with OFDM from the peak to average power ratio (PAPR) and complexity viewpoints. Although the PAPR of SC-FDP signals is lower than that of OFDM signals, for MIMO systems, the difference between their PAPR decreases as we increase the number of users. Thus, both techniques can have similar PAPR in massive MIMO systems. The overall complexity of SC-FDP and OFDM is similar. Due to the mentioned facts, SC-FDP can be considered as a promising transmission scheme for the downlink of the massive MIMO systems in the presence of carrier frequency offset and power amplifier non-linearities.