Non-Coherent Multi-User Massive MIMO Receivers with One-Bit Sigma-Delta Quantization

It has been shown recently that one-bit Sigma-Delta quantization achieves an excellent performance in coherent massive MIMO reception by spatially shaping the quantization noise. In this paper, we extend this concept to non-coherent reception and propose a multi-user massive MIMO receiver which does not require instantaneous but only long-term channelstate information, particularly the angular direction of the users. To this end, several strategies for the implementation of onebit Sigma-Delta quantization in the multi-user/multi-direction scenario – including antenna-subset selection as well as secondorder Sigma-Delta approaches – are proposed. Moreover, it is presented how the user separation – a prerequisite for noncoherent detection and the related significant reduction of the estimation and synchronization effort – can be realized in the equivalent angular domain. The performance of the proposed multi-user one-bit Sigma-Delta design in combination with noncoherent decision-feedback differential detection is assessed by means of numerical simulations.