Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications are expected to be incorporated in future wireless networks, in particular 5G and beyond networks, to provide global wireless access with enhanced data rates. Massive multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) techniques, though widely used in terrestrial communication systems, have not been applied to LEO satellite communication systems. In this paper, we propose a massive MIMO transmission scheme with full frequency reuse (FFR) for LEO satellite communication systems and exploit statistical channel state information (sCSI) to address the difficulty of obtaining instantaneous CSI (iCSI) at the transmitter. We first establish the massive MIMO channel model for LEO satellite communications and simplify the transmission designs via performing Doppler and delay compensations at user terminals (UTs). Then, we develop the low-complexity sCSI based downlink (DL) precoder and uplink (UL) receiver in closed-form, aiming to maximize the average signal-to-leakage-plus-noise ratio (ASLNR) and the average signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (ASINR), respectively. It is shown that the DL ASLNRs and UL ASINRs of all UTs reach their upper bounds under some channel condition. Motivated by this, we propose a space angle based user grouping (SAUG) algorithm to schedule the served UTs into different groups, where each group of UTs use the same time and frequency resource. The proposed algorithm is asymptotically optimal in the sense that the lower and upper bounds of the achievable rate coincide when the number of satellite antennas or UT groups is sufficiently large. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed massive MIMO transmission scheme with FFR significantly enhances the data rate of LEO satellite communication systems. Notably, the proposed sCSI based precoder and receiver achieve the similar performance with the iCSI based ones that are often infeasible in practice.

We propose pilot reuse (PR) in single cell for massive multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission to reduce the pilot overhead. For spatially correlated Rayleigh fading channels, we establish a relationship between channel spatial correlations and channel power angle spectrum when the base station antenna number tends to infinity. With this channel model, we show that sum mean square error (MSE) of channel estimation can be minimized provided that channel angle of arrival intervals of the user terminals reusing the pilots are non-overlapping, which shows feasibility of PR over spatially correlated massive MIMO channels with constrained channel angular spreads. Since channel estimation performance might degrade due to PR, we also develop the closed-form robust multiuser uplink receiver and downlink precoder that minimize sum MSE of signal detection, and reveal a duality between them. Subsequently, we investigate pilot scheduling, which determines the PR pattern, under two minimum MSE related criteria, and propose a low complexity pilot scheduling algorithm, which relies on the channel statistics only. Simulation results show that the proposed PR scheme provides significant performance gains over the conventional orthogonal training scheme in terms of net spectral efficiency.

The emergence of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) enables us to establish programmable radio wave propagation that caters for wireless communications, via employing low-cost passive reflecting units. This work studies the non-trivial tradeoff between energy efficiency (EE) and spectral efficiency (SE) in multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) uplink communications aided by a RIS equipped with discrete phase shifters. For reducing the required signaling overhead and energy consumption, our transmission strategy design is based on the partial channel state information (CSI), including the statistical CSI between the RIS and user terminals (UTs) and the instantaneous CSI between the RIS and the base station. To investigate the EE-SE tradeoff, we develop a framework for the joint optimization of UTs' transmit precoding and RIS reflective beamforming to maximize a performance metric called resource efficiency (RE). For the design of UT's precoding, it is simplified into the design of UTs' transmit powers with the aid of the closed-form solutions of UTs' optimal transmit directions. To avoid the high complexity in computing the nested integrals involved in the expectations, we derive an asymptotic deterministic objective expression. For the design of the RIS phases, an iterative mean-square error minimization approach is proposed via capitalizing on the homotopy, accelerated projected gradient, and majorization-minimization methods. Numerical results illustrate the effectiveness and rapid convergence rate of our proposed optimization framework.

We propose adjustable phase shift pilots (APSPs) for channel acquisition in wideband massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems employing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) to reduce the pilot overhead. Based on a physically motivated channel model, we first establish a relationship between channel space-frequency correlations and the channel power angle-delay spectrum in the massive antenna array regime, which reveals the channel sparsity in massive MIMO-OFDM. With this channel model, we then investigate channel acquisition, including channel estimation and channel prediction, for massive MIMO-OFDM with APSPs. We show that channel acquisition performance in terms of sum mean square error can be minimized if the user terminals' channel power distributions in the angle-delay domain can be made nonoverlapping with proper pilot phase shift scheduling. A simplified pilot phase shift scheduling algorithm is developed based on this optimal channel acquisition condition. The performance of APSPs is investigated for both one symbol and multiple symbol data models. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed APSP approach can provide substantial performance gains in terms of achievable spectral efficiency over the conventional phase shift orthogonal pilot approach in typical mobility scenarios.

This paper investigates the downlink (DL) transmit design for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite communication systems, where only the slow-varying statistical channel state information is exploited at the transmitter. The channel model for the DL massive MIMO LEO satellite system is established, in which both the satellite and the user terminals (UTs) are equipped with uniform planar arrays. Observing the rank-one property of the channel matrices, we show that the single-stream precoding for each UT is the optimal choice that maximizes the ergodic sum rate. This favorable result simplifies the complicated design of transmit covariance matrices into that of precoding vectors without any loss of optimality. Then, an efficient algorithm is devised to compute the precoding vectors. Furthermore, we formulate an approximate transmit design based on the upper bound on the ergodic sum rate, for which the optimality of single-stream precoding still holds. We show that, in this case, the design of precoding vectors can be simplified into that of scalar variables, for which an effective algorithm is developed. In addition, a low-complexity learning framework is proposed for optimizing the scalar variables. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approaches can achieve significant performance gains over the existing schemes.

We propose beam division multiple access (BDMA) with per-beam synchronization (PBS) in time and frequency for wideband massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission over millimeter-wave (mmW)/Terahertz (THz) bands. We first introduce a physically motivated beam domain channel model for massive MIMO and demonstrate that the envelopes of the beam domain channel elements tend to be independent of time and frequency when both the numbers of antennas at base station and user terminals (UTs) tend to infinity. Motivated by the derived beam domain channel properties, we then propose PBS for mmW/THz massive MIMO. We show that both the effective delay and Doppler frequency spreads of wideband massive MIMO channels with PBS are reduced by a factor of the number of UT antennas compared with the conventional synchronization approaches. Subsequently, we apply PBS to BDMA, investigate beam scheduling to maximize the ergodic achievable rates for both uplink and downlink BDMA, and develop a greedy beam scheduling algorithm. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of BDMA with PBS for mmW/THz wideband massive MIMO systems in typical mobility scenarios.