Multi-dimensional Channel Parameter Estimation for mmWave Cylindrical Arrays

Publication Type:
Thesis
Issue Date:
2021
Full metadata record
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) large-scale antenna arrays, standardized for the fifth-generation (5G) communication networks, have the potential to estimate channel parameters with unprecedented accuracy, due to their high temporal resolution and excellent directivity. However, most existing techniques have very high complexities in hardware and software, and they cannot effectively exploit the properties of mmWave large-array systems for channel estimation. As a result, their application in 5G mmWave large array systems is limited in practice. This thesis develops new and efficient solutions to channel parameter estimation using large-scale mmWave uniform cylindrical arrays (UCyAs). The key contributions of this thesis are on the following four aspects: We first present a channel compression-based channel estimation method, which reduces the computational complexity substantially at a negligible cost of estimation accuracy. By capitalizing on the sparsity of mmWave channel, the method effectively filters out the useless signal components. As a result, the dimension of the element space of the received signals can be reduced. Next, we extend the channel estimation to the hybrid UCyA case, and design new hybrid beamformers. By exploiting the convergence property of the Bessel function, the designed beamformers can preserve the recurrence relationship of the received signals with a small number of radio frequency (RF) chains. We then arrange the received signals in a tensor form and propose a new tensor-based channel estimation algorithm. By suppressing the receiver noises in all dimensions (time, frequency, and space), the algorithm can achieve substantially higher estimation accuracy than existing matrix-based techniques. Finally, to reduce cost and power consumption while maintaining a high network access capability, we develop a novel nested hybrid UCyA and present the corresponding parameter estimation algorithm based on the second-order channel statistics. Simulation results show that by exploiting the sparse array technique to design the RF chain connection network, the angles of a large number of devices can be accurately estimated with much fewer RF chains than antennas. Overall, this thesis presents several applicable UCyA design schemes and proposes the efficient channel parameter estimation algorithms. The presented new UCyAs can significantly reduce the hardware cost of the system with a marginal accuracy loss, and the proposed algorithms are capable of accurately estimating the channel parameters with low computational complexities. By employing the presented UCyAs and implementing the proposed novel algorithms cohesively, the different communication and deployment requirements of a variety of mmWave communication scenarios can be met.
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