Sectoring in Multi-cell Massive MIMO Systems

Abstract: In this paper, the downlink of a typical massive MIMO system is studied when each base station is composed of three antenna arrays with directional antenna elements serving 120 degrees of the two-dimensional space. A lower bound for the achievable rate is provided. Furthermore, a power optimization problem is formulated and as a result, centralized and decentralized power allocation schemes are proposed. The simulation results reveal that using directional antennas at base stations along with sectoring can lead to a notable increase in the achievable rates by increasing the received signal power and decreasing 'pilot contamination' interference in multicell massive MIMO systems. Moreover, it is shown that using optimized power allocation can increase 0.95-likely rate in the system significantly.