Pilot Assignment for Cell Free Massive MIMO Systems Using a Weighted Graphic Framework

Pilot contamination resulting from pilot reuse seriously restricts the communication performance of the cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networks. To deal with this problem, an efficient pilot assignment scheme using a weighted graphic framework is proposed in this correspondence paper. Specifically, a novel metric is first introduced for capturing the severity of potential mutual pilot contamination in cell-free topology. On this basis, the weighted pilot contamination graph is constructed to depict the dynamic interference relationship corresponding to the network. Then, the pilot assignment optimization is mapped to the Max k-Cut problem, and a heuristic algorithm is exploited to realize pilot decontamination. Numerical simulation results reveal the superior performance of the proposed scheme, which is capable of achieving a significant improvement in throughput with low complexity.

Automated summary

This paper proposes an efficient pilot assignment scheme using a weighted graphic framework to address pilot contamination in cell-free massive MIMO networks. By introducing a novel metric and constructing a weighted pilot contamination graph, the scheme is capable of significantly improving throughput with low complexity.