We consider training-based channel estimation for a cloud radio access network (CRAN), in which a large amount of remote radio heads (RRHs) and users are randomly scattered over the service area. In this model, assigning orthogonal training sequences to all users will incur a substantial overhead to the overall network, and is even impossible when the number of users is large. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce the notion of local orthogonality, under which the training sequence of a user is orthogonal to those of the other users in its neighborhood. We model the design of locally orthogonal training sequences as a graph coloring problem. Then, based on the theory of random geometric graph, we show that the minimum training length scales in the order of lnK, where K is the number of users covered by a CRAN. This indicates that the proposed training design yields a scalable solution to sustain the need of large-scale cooperation in CRANs. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme outperforms other reference schemes.
Dense large-scale antenna deployments are one of the most promising technologies for delivering very large throughputs per unit area in the downlink (DL) of cellular networks. We consider such a dense deployment involving a distributed system formed by multi-antenna remote radio head (RRH) units connected to the same fronthaul serving a geographical area. Knowledge of the DL channel between each active user and its nearby RRH antennas is most efficiently obtained at the RRHs via reciprocity based training, that is, by estimating a user's channel using uplink (UL) pilots transmitted by the user, and exploiting the UL DL channel reciprocity. We consider aggressive pilot reuse across an RRH system, whereby a single pilot dimension is simultaneously assigned to multiple active users. We introduce a novel coded pilot approach, which allows each RRH unit to detect pilot collisions, i.e., when more than a single user in its proximity uses the same pilot dimensions. Thanks to the proposed coded pilot approach, pilot contamination can be substantially avoided. As shown, such a strategy can yield densification benefits in the form of increased multiplexing gains per UL pilot dimension with respect to conventional reuse schemes and some recent approaches assigning pseudorandom pilot vectors to the active users. As a promising technique to meet the drastically growing demand for both high throughput and uniform coverage in the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems have attracted significant attention in recent years. However, in massive MIMO systems, as the density of mobile users (MUs) increases, conventional uplink training methods will incur prohibitively high training overhead, which is proportional to the number of MUs. In this paper, we propose a selective uplink training method for massive MIMO systems, where in each channel block only part of the MUs will send uplink pilots for channel training, and the channel states of the remaining MUs are predicted from the estimates in previous blocks, taking advantage of the channels' temporal correlation. We propose an efficient algorithm to dynamically select the MUs to be trained within each block and determine the optimal uplink training length. Simulation results show that the proposed training method provides significant throughput gains compared to the existing methods, while much lower estimation complexity is achieved. It is observed that the throughput gain becomes higher as the MU density increases.