Semi-Blind Receivers for Multi-User Massive MIMO Relay Systems Based on Block Tucker2-PARAFAC Tensor Model

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay can significantly improve the capacity and throughput of wireless networks, thus has been a sought-after technique for future communication systems. However, the development of massive MIMO relay systems faces several major challenges. For example, the knowledge of instantaneous channel state information (CSI) is needed to estimate signals and optimize systems. Traditional estimation schemes need to transmit pilot sequences, which occupy the spectrum resources. In this paper, we propose a tensor-based method for joint signal and channel estimation for multi-user massive MIMO relay systems without using pilot sequences, and develop two tensor-based semi-blind receivers. Through multidimensional signaling scheme, the signals received by each user are formulated as the block Tucker2-PARAFAC (TP) tensor model. Then, two semi-blind receivers are proposed to jointly estimate the information signals and channel matrices. One is based on the tensor-based closed-form receiver, the other is based on the tensor-based iterative receiver. The proposed closed-form approach can also be used to initialize the iterative receiver for improving the convergence speed. In particular, the proposed schemes are practicable for both time division duplexing (TDD) and frequency division duplexing (FDD) modes. Uniqueness, identifiability and complexity are analyzed for our receivers. Compared with existing receivers, our receivers offer superior bit error rate (BER) and normalized mean square error (NMSE) performance. Numerical examples are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed tensor-based receivers.