Area Spectral Efficiency and Area Energy Efficiency of Massive MIMO Cellular Systems

Abstract

This paper investigates the performance of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) cellular systems with pilot contamination. We derive a closed-form approximation of the area spectral efficiency (ASE) for uplink multicell multiuser massive MIMO systems by using a uniformly distributed user location model. Considering a practical power consumption model, we obtain the area energy efficiency (AEE) in a cell. The theoretical results of ASE and AEE can be used to investigate some system parameters of massive MIMO cellular systems, such as the number of antennas at the base station, the number of users, and the number of symbols over which the channel remains constant. We also study the optimal pilot-to-data power ratio for both ASE maximization and AEE maximization.