Channel Estimation and Uplink Achievable Rates in One-Bit Massive MIMO Systems

Abstract: This paper considers channel estimation and achievable rates for the uplink of a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system where the base station is equipped with one-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). By rewriting the nonlinear one-bit quantization using a linear expression, we first derive a simple and insightful expression for the linear minimum mean-square-error (LMMSE) channel estimator. Then employing this channel estimator, we derive a closed-form expression for the lower bound of the achievable rate for the maximum ratio combiner (MRC) receiver. Numerical results are presented to verify our analysis and show that our proposed LMMSE channel estimator outperforms the near maximum likelihood (nML) estimator proposed previously.