On Uplink Performance of Multiuser Massive MIMO Relay Network With Limited RF Chains

Abstract: This paper considers a multiuser massive multiple-input multiple-output uplink with the help of an analog amplify-and-forward relay. The base station equips a large array of $N_d$ antennas but is supported by a far smaller number of radio-frequency chains. By first deriving new results for a cascaded phase-aligned two-hop channel, we obtain a tight bound for the ergodic rate in closed form for both perfect and quantized channel phase information. The rate is characterized as a function of a scaled equivalent signal-to-noise ratio of the two-hop channel. It implies that the source and relay powers can be respectively scaled down as $1/N_d^a$ and $1/N_d^{1-a}~ (0!\leq!a!\leq!1)$ for an asymptotically unchanged sum rate. Then for the rate maximization, the problem of power allocation is optimized with closed-form solutions. Simulation results verified the observations of our derived results.