Movable-Antenna-Enhanced Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems: Modelling and Performance Analysis

Movable-Antenna-Enhanced Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems: Modelling and Performance Analysis

You will be architecting the High-Speed, Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency wireless networks of tomorrow!

Movable antennas are antennas that can be physically moved in a three-dimensional space. This movement can be one-dimensional sliding (e.g., along a sliding rack), movement inside a small enclosure (e.g., fluid antennas), movement across multiple closely spaced switchable positions, or repositioning within a compact aperture. Importantly, during these movements, only the antenna position changes, while the antenna hardware remains the same.

With movable antennas, an additional degree of freedom is introduced, similar to time, frequency, polarization, and other spatial dimensions. As a result, antennas with mobility capability can provide several benefits:

1. fading mitigation and enhanced spatial multiplexing without additional RF resources such as antennas, where the collective net effect is a higher beamforming gain as well as increased interference suppression;
2. hardware-efficient MIMO where less RF resources are needed to achieve reliable communication;
3. adaptability to dynamic environments.

These benefits of movable antennas are especially attractive for dense networks such as cell-free massive MIMO and distributed wireless networks in FR2-3 bands. In addition to cell-free systems, movable antennas are also promising for massive MIMO with reduced RF chains, mmWave/THz systems, and space-constrained devices such as IoT and wearable devices.

Despite their benefits, movable antennas are still at an early stage of research and face some key limitations. For instance, antenna movement requires time, making them unsuitable for fast-fading applications. Hence, they are best suited for quasi-static or slow-fading channels and block-fading scenarios.

In this internship, the student will study movable-antenna-enhanced distributed massive MIMO wireless networks. Specifically, the focus will be on one-, two-, or three-dimensional movable antennas, and a comprehensive system model will first be developed for distributed MIMO networks. This system modeling will include a mathematical framework for movable-antenna-based cell-free wireless systems as well as channel modeling. Based on the developed models, resource allocation problems in cell-free wireless systems will be investigated including the antenna positions using the available local or glabal channel state information. The student will conduct a comparative study to evaluate the complexity, performance, and feasibility of movable-antenna-based cell-free systems versus conventional fixed-antenna cell-free systems.

The successful candidate must demonstrate a strong understanding of optimization, signal processing, and mathematics in wireless communications. The candidate will be part of a large IMEC team working on the research, implementation, and prototyping of future communication systems. Candidates should be enrolled in a Master's program in Electrical Engineering or a related field with a background in signal processing.

Daily supervisor(s): Muteen Munawar (muteen.munawar@imec.be)