Cell-Edge-Aware Precoding for Downlink Massive MIMO Cellular Networks

We propose a cell-edge-aware (CEA) zero forcing (ZF) precoder that exploits the excess spatial degrees of freedom provided by a large number of base station (BS) antennas to suppress inter-cell interference at themost vulnerable user equipments (UEs). We evaluate the downlink performance of CEA-ZF, as well as that of a conventional cell-edge-unaware (CEU) ZF precoder in a network with a random BS topology. Our analysis and simulations show that the proposed CEA-ZF precoder outperforms CEU-ZF precoding in terms of (i) aggregate per-cell data rate, (ii) coverage probability, and (iii) 95%-likely, or edge user, rate. In particular, when both perfect channel state information and a large number of antennasN are available at the BSs, we demonstrate that the outage probability under CEA-ZF and CEU-ZF decay as 1/N-2 and 1/N, respectively. This result identifies CEA-ZF as a more effective precoding scheme for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) cellular networks. Our framework also reveals the importance of scheduling the optimal number of UEs per BS, and confirms the necessity to control the amount of pilot contamination received during the channel estimation phase.