This paper considers sparse device activity detection for cellular machine-type communications with non-orthogonal signatures using the approximate message passing algorithm. This paper compares two network architectures, massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) and cooperative MIMO, in terms of their effectiveness in overcoming inter-cell interference. In the massive MIMO architecture, each base station (BS) detects only the users from its own cell while treating inter-cell interference as noise. In the cooperative MIMO architecture, each BS detects the users from neighboring cells as well; the detection results are then forwarded in the form of a log-likelihood ratio (LLR) to a central unit where final decisions are made. This paper analytically characterizes the probabilities of false alarm and missed detection for both architectures. The numerical results validate the analytic characterization and show that as the number of antennas increases, a massive MIMO system effectively drives the detection error to zero, while as the cooperation size increases, the cooperative MIMO architecture mainly improves the cell-edge user performance. Moreover, this paper studies the effect of LLR quantization to account for the finite-capacity fronthaul. The numerical simulations of a practical scenario suggest that in specific case cooperating three BSs in a cooperative MIMO system achieves about the same cell-edge detection reliability as a non-cooperative massive MIMO system with four times the number of antennas per BS.
This paper considers the massive connectivity application in which a large number of devices communicate with a base-station (BS) in a sporadic fashion. Device activity detection and channel estimation are central problems in such a scenario. Due to the large number of potential devices, the devices need to be assigned non-orthogonal signature sequences. The main objective of this paper is to show that by using random signature sequences and by exploiting sparsity in the user activity pattern, the joint user detection and channel estimation problem can be formulated as a compressed sensing single measurement vector (SMV) or multiple measurement vector (MMV) problem depending on whether the BS has a single antenna or multiple antennas and efficiently solved using an approximate message passing (AMP) algorithm. This paper proposes an AMP algorithm design that exploits the statistics of the wireless channel and provides an analytical characterization of the probabilities of false alarm and missed detection via state evolution. We consider two cases depending on whether or not the large-scale component of the channel fading is known at the BS and design the minimum mean squared error denoiser for AMP according to the channel statistics. Simulation results demonstrate the substantial advantage of exploiting the channel statistics in AMP design; however, knowing the large-scale fading component does not appear to offer tangible benefits. For the multiple-antenna case, we employ two different AMP algorithms, namely the AMP with vector denoiser and the parallel AMP-MMV, and quantify the benefit of deploying multiple antennas. Machine-type communication services in mobile cellular systems are currently evolving with an aim to efficiently address a massive-scale user access to the system. One of the key problems in this respect is to efficiently identify active users in order to allocate them resources for the subsequent transmissions. In this paper, we examine two recently suggested approaches for user activity detection: compressed-sensing (CS) and coded slotted ALOHA (CSA), and provide their comparison in terms of performance vs resource utilization. Our preliminary results show that CS-based approach is able to provide the target user activity detection performance with less overall system resource utilization. However, this comes at a price of lower energy-efficiency per user, as compared to CSA-based approach. The number of active users in code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems is often much lower than the spreading gain. The present paper exploits fruitfully this a priori information to improve performance of multiuser detectors. A low-activity factor manifests itself in a sparse symbol vector with entries drawn from a finite alphabet that is augmented by the zero symbol to capture user inactivity. The non-equiprobable symbols of the augmented alphabet motivate a sparsity-exploiting maximum a posteriori probability (S-MAP) criterion, which is shown to yield a cost comprising the l2 least-squares error penalized by the p-th norm of the wanted symbol vector (p = 0, 1, 2). Related optimization problems appear in variable selection (shrinkage) schemes developed for linear regression, as well as in the emerging field of compressive sampling (CS). The contribution of this work to such sparse CDMA systems is a gamut of sparsity-exploiting multiuser detectors trading off performance for complexity requirements. From the vantage point of CS and the least-absolute shrinkage selection operator (Lasso) spectrum of applications, the contribution amounts to sparsity-exploiting algorithms when the entries of the wanted signal vector adhere to finite-alphabet constraints. Massive Machine Type Communication is seen as one major driver for the research of new physical layer technologies for future communication systems. To handle massive access, the main challenges are avoiding control signaling overhead, low complexity data processing per sensor, supporting of diverse but rather low data rates and a flexible and scalable access. To address all these challenges, we propose a combination of compressed sensing based detection known as Compressed Sensing based Multi User Detection (CS-MUD) with multicarrier access schemes. We name this novel combination Multicarrier CS-MUD (MCSM). Previous investigations on CS-MUD facilitates massive direct random access by exploiting the signal sparsity caused by sporadic sensor activity. The new combined scheme MCSM with its flexibility in accessing time frequency resources additionally allows for either reducing the number of subcarriers or shortening the multicarrier symbol duration, i.e., we gain a high spectral efficiency. Simulation results are given to show the performance of the proposed scheme. As it becomes increasingly apparent that 4G will not be able to meet the emerging demands of future mobile communication systems, the question what could make up a 5G system, what are the crucial challenges, and what are the key drivers is part of intensive, ongoing discussions. Partly due to the advent of compressive sensing, methods that can optimally exploit sparsity in signals have received tremendous attention in recent years. In this paper, we will describe a variety of scenarios in which signal sparsity arises naturally in 5G wireless systems. Signal sparsity and the associated rich collection of tools and algorithms will thus be a viable source for innovation in 5G wireless system design. We will also describe applications of this sparse signal processing paradigm in Multiple Input Multiple Output random access, cloud radio access networks, compressive channel-source network coding, and embedded security. We will also emphasize an important open problem that may arise in 5G system design, for which sparsity will potentially play a key role in their solution.