On the spectral efficiency of cell-free massive MIMO system in irregular 5G mobile networks

Spectral efficiency (SE) is one of the eminent requirements in 5G mobile networks. Cell-free (CF) massive MIMO is deemed a key technology to provide substantial SE in 5G compared with the cellular and small cell approaches. Most of the prior studies have been focusing on the access points (APs) uniform distribution to assess the SE performance. However, 5G networks are typically dense, irregularly distributed, and mostly constrained by channel impairments. Therefore, considering a uniform distribution of APs is unrealistic. This paper considers a practical network distribution by taking into account the irregular and adaptive APs distribution based on the Poisson point process approach and over the Rician fading channels. Therein, the downlink (DL) SE of CF massive MIMO system is accurately investigated bearing in mind the AP's irregular distribution and fast channel variation for both perfect and imperfect channel state information (CSI) cases. The simulation results have shown that the DL SE of the CF massive MIMO system is considerably affected when considering the irregular deployment of APs compared with the uniform distribution, especially when the phase noise effect is tense. The SE gain performance is reduced by 37.9% in the DL transmissions, compared with the uniform model. Besides, the results have proven that the DL SE gain is remarkably improved when the APs are largely distributed within the network. However, the gained DL SE is affected when increasing the user's density and length of the uplink training period.