POKEMON: A non-linear beamforming algorithm for 1-bit massive MIMO

One-bit quantization at the base-station (BS) of a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless system enables significant power and cost savings. While the 1-bit uplink (users communicate to BS) has gained significant attention, the downlink (BS transmits to users) is far less studied. In this paper, we propose a novel, computationally-efficient 1-bit beamforming algorithm referred to as POKEMON (short for PrOjected downlinK bEaMfOrmiNg), which-after its convolution with the MIMO channel matrix-minimizes multi-user interference (a.k.a. spatial leakage). Our algorithm builds upon the biconvex relaxation (BCR) framework, which efficiently approximates the optimal 1-bit beamforming problem that is of combinatorial nature. Our simulation results show that POKEMON significantly outperforms linear beamformers followed by 1-bit quantization in terms of error-rate performance and recent non-linear beamformers in terms of complexity.