Symbol detection aided channel prediction in fast-varying massive MIMO systems: Framework and performance analysis

The channel in massive multiple-input multiple-output systems is fast-varying that the pilot signal needs to be sent frequently. To obtain timely channel state information with less pilot overheads, a symbol detection aided channel prediction scheme is proposed in this paper. Then, the prediction error lower bound of the proposed scheme within one interval of effective prediction is analysed. Besides, the approximate close-form post-processing signal to noise ratio is derived for zero-forcing detector with imperfect channel predictions. Numerical simulations are implemented to verify the validity of theoretical analysis. The results show that the theoretical expressions have a close match with the real simulated performance under various simulation parameter settings. In addition, the frequency of transmitting the pilot signals can be significantly reduced when adopting this proposed method. Moreover, the application of the proposed scheme can be further expanded when combining it with channel coding, thereby greatly improving the spectrum efficiency of the system.