Efficient Equalization Method for Cyclic Prefix-Free Coarsely Quantized Massive MIMO Systems

The use of low resolution Analog to Digital Converters (ADCs) can significantly reduce the power consumption for massive Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems. The existing literature on quantized massive MIMO systems deals with Cyclic Prefix (CP) transmission schemes in frequency-selective fading channels. In this paper, we propose a block processing Frequency Domain Equalization (FDE) technique in CP-free transmission schemes for massive MIMO systems having low resolution ADCs. The optimal block length for FDE is found by minimizing a computational complexity cost function and taking quantization distortion, channel impulse response and the number of transmit and receiver antennas into account. Through numerical simulation, it is shown that the optimal block length also guarantees good performance in terms of the Mean Square Error (MSE) and Bit Error-Rate (BER) criterion.