Spectral Efficiency Analysis of Multi-Cell Massive MIMO Systems with Ricean Fading

This paper investigates the spectral efficiency of multi-cell massive multiple-input multiple-output systems with Ricean fading that utilize the linear maximal-ratio combining detector. We firstly present closed-form expressions for the effective signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) with the least squares and minimum mean squared error (MMSE) estimation methods, respectively, which apply for any number of base-station antennas M and any Ricean K-factor. Also, the obtained results can be particularized in Rayleigh fading conditions when the Ricean K-factor is equal to zero. In the following, novel exact asymptotic expressions of the effective SINR are derived in the high M and high Ricean K-factor regimes. The corresponding analysis shows that pilot contamination is removed by the MMSE estimator when we consider both infinite M and infinite Ricean K-factor, while the pilot contamination phenomenon persists for the rest of cases. All the theoretical results are verified via Monte-Carlo simulations.