Antenna Array Topologies for mmWave Massive MIMO Systems: Spectral Efficiency Analysis

This article investigates the achievable spectral efficiency (SE) of millimeter wave massive multiple-input multiple-output systems with three different array topologies deployed at the base station (BS), namely uniform rectangular array (URA), uniform linear array (ULA) or uniform circular array (UCA). To be practical, both small scale fading and large scale path loss, and shadowing effects are considered in the analysis. A 3D channel model taking both the azimuth and elevation domains into account is adopted for the analysis of the URA and UCA topologies. Considering randomly distributed users in the cell, we firstly deduce the distribution functions of the distances between the users and the BS, and the azimuth and elevation angles of departure, respectively. Based on the derived probability distribution, tight approximations on the achievable SE with maximum ration transmission under the three antenna array topologies are derived. Analytical results show that under all the three topologies, the total achievable SE increases with the number of BS antennas, but decreases with the radius of cell and decay exponent. Moreover, it converges to a saturated value in the high SNR regime and a large inter-element spacing. It is also found that the UCA configuration has a superior achievable SE than the URA and ULA cases, and thus is the best choice for mmWave massive MIMO systems in terms of the achievable SE.