Joint Channel Estimation and Feedback with Masked Token Transformers in Massive MIMO Systems

Abstract: The downlink channel state information (CSI) estimation and low overhead acquisition are the major challenges for massive MIMO systems in frequency division duplex to enable high MIMO gain. Recently, numerous studies have been conducted to harness the power of deep neural networks for better channel estimation and feedback. However, existing methods have yet to fully exploit the intrinsic correlation features present in CSI. As a consequence, distinct network structures are utilized for handling these two tasks separately. To achieve joint channel estimation and feedback, this paper proposes an encoder-decoder based network that unveils the intrinsic frequency-domain correlation within the CSI matrix. The entire encoder-decoder network is utilized for channel compression. To effectively capture and restructure correlation features, a self-mask-attention coding is proposed, complemented by an active masking strategy designed to improve efficiency. The channel estimation is achieved through the decoder part, wherein a lightweight multilayer perceptron denoising module is utilized for further accurate estimation. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method not only outperforms state-of-the-art channel estimation and feedback techniques in joint tasks but also achieves beneficial performance in individual tasks.