Energy-Efficient Massive MIMO SWIPT-Enabled Systems

This study focuses on the downlink (DL) transmission of massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) with the support of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) system based on a power-splitting (PS) scheme. To reach the green design target in the concept of wireless communication networks, this paper maximizes the system’s energy efficiency (EE) using joint system-level optimization. First, the closed-form expressions of the harvested energy and achievable data rate are first derived. Then, we formulated the EE maximization problem by jointly optimizing user equipment (UE) pilot transmission time allocation, the received PS ratios, a base station (BS) transmit power allocation, and a number of BS antennas while considering the minimum data rate as user’s quality-of-service (QoS) requirement and the maximum BS power transmission constraint. However, the formulated EE maximization problem is non-convex and non-linear which is difficult to solve. Hence, we propose an efficient low-complex alternative optimization (LCAO) algorithm to solve the non-convex problem iteratively with an acceptable computational complexity level. Simulation results are provided to evaluate the derived closed-form expressions and validate the proposed LCAO algorithm’s efficiency. The optimality, convergence, and complexity of the LCAO algorithm are analytically investigated. Results indicate that the proposed LCAO algorithm outperforms the equal power allocation (EPA) scheme by 15% better EE gain and 4% better than the max-min fairness scheme when the BS power transmission capacity is higher than 3 (Watt).