RMV Antenna Selection Algorithm for Massive MIMO

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has shown its great capabilities in improving spectral efficiency and energy efficiency, yet the high complexity and cost of hardware are huge challenges. In massive MIMO, antenna selection (AS) is still an effective way to decrease the number of radio frequency chains. In this letter, the AS problem in massive MIMO systems is studied with the consideration of maximizing the channel capacity. To eliminate the limitation of the traditional square maximum-volume (SMV) AS method, the theory of rectangular maximum-volume (RMV) submatrices is introduced. An AS algorithm based on RMV method is also developed for massive MIMO, which can be regarded as a postprocessing of the results of SMV method. Based on the result obtained from SMV method, the proposed algorithm can select a rectangular submatrix with maximum-volume from the channel matrix. Finally, the numerical simulations are presented to show the validity of the proposed RMV method.