Two-Timescale Design for Movable Antennas Enabled-Multiuser MIMO Systems

Abstract: Movable antennas (MAs), which can be swiftly repositioned within a defined region, offer a promising solution to the limitations of fixed-position antennas (FPAs) in adapting to spatial variations in wireless channels, thereby improving channel conditions and communication between transceivers. However, frequent MA position adjustments based on instantaneous channel state information (CSI) incur high operational complexity, making real-time CSI acquisition impractical, especially in fast-fading channels. To address these challenges, we propose a two-timescale transmission framework for MA-enabled multiuser multiple-input-multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems. In the large timescale, statistical CSI is exploited to optimize MA positions for long-term ergodic performance, whereas, in the small timescale, beamforming vectors are designed using instantaneous CSI to handle short-term channel fluctuations. Within this new framework, we analyze the ergodic sum rate and develop efficient MA position optimization algorithms for both maximum-ratio-transmission (MRT) and zero-forcing (ZF) beamforming schemes. These algorithms employ alternating optimization (AO), successive convex approximation (SCA), and majorization-minimization (MM) techniques, iteratively optimizing antenna positions and refining surrogate functions that approximate the ergodic sum rate. Numerical results show significant ergodic sum rate gains with the proposed two-timescale MA design over conventional FPA systems, particularly under moderate to strong line-of-sight (LoS) conditions. Notably, MA with ZF beamforming consistently outperforms MA with MRT, highlighting the synergy between beamforming and MAs for superior interference management in environments with moderate Rician factors and high user density, while MA with MRT can offer a simplified alternative to complex beamforming designs in strong LoS conditions.