Multi-cell massive MIMO performance with double scattering channels

This paper investigates the spectral efficiency (SE) of multi-cell Massive Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) using different channel models. Prior works have derived closed-form SE bounds and approximations for Gaussian distributed channels, while we consider the double scattering model — a prime example of a non-Gaussian channel for which it is intractable to obtain closed form SE expressions. The channels are estimated using limited resources, which gives rise to pilot contamination, and the estimates are used for linear detection and to compute the SE numerically. Analytical and numerical examples are used to describe the key behaviors of the double scattering models, which differ from conventional Massive MIMO models. Finally, we provide multi-cell simulation results that compare the double scattering model with uncorrelated Rayleigh fading and explain under what conditions we can expect to achieve similar SEs.