We carry out a theoretical analysis of the uplink (UL) of a massive MIMO system with per-user channel correlation and Rician fading, using two processing approaches. Firstly, we examine the linearminimum-mean-square-error receiver under training-based imperfect channel estimates. Secondly, we propose a statistical combining technique that is more suitable in environments with strong Line-of-Sight (LoS) components. We derive closed-form asymptotic approximations of the UL spectral efficiency (SE) attained by each combining scheme in single and multi-cell settings, as a function of the system parameters. These expressions are insightful in how different factors such as LoS propagation conditions and pilot contamination impact the overall system performance. Furthermore, they are exploited to determine the optimal number of training symbols which is shown to be of significant interest at low Rician factors. The study and numerical results substantiate that stronger LoS signals lead to better performances, and under such conditions, the statistical combining entails higher SE gains than the conventional receiver. Index TermsMassive MIMO, correlated Rician fading, imperfect channel estimation, optimal training, LMMSE combining.

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This work considers the uplink (UL) of a multicell massive MIMO system with L cells, having each K monoantenna users communicating with an N −antennas base station (BS). The channel model involves Rician fading with distinct per-user Rician factors and channel correlation matrices and takes into account pilot contamination and imperfect CSI. The objective is to evaluate the performances of such systems with different single-cell and multi-cell detection methods. In the former, we investigate MRC and single-cell MMSE (S-MMSE); as to the latter, we are interested in multi-cell MMSE (M-MMSE) that was recently shown to provide unbounded rates in Rayleigh fading. The analysis is led assuming the infinite N limit and yields informative closed-form approximations that are substantiated by a selection of numerical results for finite system dimensions. Accordingly, these expressions are accurate and provide relevant insights into the effects of the different system parameters on the overall performances.

This work investigates the uplink of massive MIMO systems using multi-cell MMSE (M-MMSE) combining that was shown to yield unbounded capacity in Rayleigh fading. All intra and inter-cell channels are correlated with distinct per-user Rician factors and channel correlation matrices, pilot contamination and imperfect channel estimation. First, a closedform approximation of the spectral efficiency (SE) is derived thus enabling to demonstrate that, under certain conditions on the correlation matrices, M-MMSE generates unbounded SE in Rician fading. Second, the impact of inter-cell LoS components is examined in favorable propagation conditions, and, interestingly, shown to be more beneficial in terms of SE than when these interfering links are entirely scattered.

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