TRANSACTIONS ON EMERGING TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES

Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 2014; 25:1219–1230

Published online 5 November 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/ett.2745

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Performance analysis for downlink massive MIMO

system with ZF precoding
Long Zhao*, Kan Zheng, Hang Long and Hui Zhao
Wireless Signal Processing and Network Lab, Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless Communication, Ministry of Education,
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China

ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the performance for the downlink massive multiple-input multiple-output system when the base
station serves multiple user terminals (UTs) using zero-forcing precoding. The tight lower bound of average area spectrum
efficiency (A2 SE) is derived as a function of the number of transmission antennas, the number of UTs and the equiva-
lent transmission signal-to-noise ratio. Regarding the lower bound as the approximate A2 SE, the optimal number of UTs
maximising the A2 SE is attained for given the number of transmission antennas and the equivalent transmission signal-to-
noise ratio. After formulating the realistic power consumption model in consideration of both the transmission power and
circuit power, the trade-off between energy efficiency (EE) and A2 SE is established, and the optimal EE with respect to
A2 SE is deduced. Moreover, both the outage probability and bit error ratio expressions are derived related to the degrees
of freedom, defined as the difference between the number of transmission antennas and the number of UTs. Simulation
results coincide to the analysis well, and they indicate that deploying more transmission antennas or multiplexing a rational
number of UTs can improve the A2 SE and EE, increasing the degrees of freedom will better both the outage probability
and bit error ratio. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

*Correspondence
Long Zhao, Wireless Signal Processing and Network Lab, Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless Communication,
Ministry of Education, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China.
E-mail: z.long.gm@gmail.com

Received 19 March 2013; Revised 25 August 2013; Accepted 7 October 2013

1. INTRODUCTION With the realizability of the massive antenna array, the

The need for high speed services increases year by year
with the rapid development of smart terminals and their
applications in wireless communication networks. In order
to meet the need, massive multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) has been put forward to improve the spectrum
efficiency (SE) [1, 2]. Moreover, massive MIMO can
enhance the energy efficiency (EE), which is regarded as
a significant metric evaluating a communication system in
consideration of both the increasing carbon emissions and
unaffordable operator expenditure [3, 4]. Apart from these
benefits, massive MIMO can better the link reliability due
to the significant diversity gain, reduce inter-user interfer-
ence and ensure physical security owing to the extremely
narrow beam [2]. Certainly, pilot contamination caused
by pilot reuse in multi-cell imposes an ultimate limit on
the performance of massive MIMO, because the maxi-
mum number of orthogonal pilot sequences is bounded
by the duration of the coherence interval and coherent
bandwidth [1, 2].
huge potential of massive MIMO has stimulated the inter-
est of researchers to study its related technology. The main
research topics of massive MIMO can be categorised as
follows: the design of the massive antenna array [5, 6],
measure and modelling of the channel [7], performance
analysis including SE and EE [1, 2], practical precod-
ing and beamforming schemes [8, 9], channel estimation
and detection algorithms [4, 10, 11], interference control
and pilot design [12], resource scheduling algorithms [13]
and so on.
From previous works, the massive MIMO systems with
different precoding or detection schemes have been inves-
tigated broadly [2–4, 8]. Maximum ratio transmission and
zero-forcing (ZF) have been proved as the practical pre-
coders [2, 3, 8]. Matched filter, ZF and minimum mean
square error were shown as the efficient detectors [2, 4, 8].
The approximate SE expressions of the massive MIMO
systems using different precoders or detectors have been
derived when the number of transmission antennas goes to
infinite. However, most of these works ignore the influence

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 1219

 L. Zhao et al.
of large-scale fading, which is a vital factor for the realistic
SE performance. Moreover, the number of user terminals
(UTs) needs discussion in order to maximise the SE. Only
considering the transmission power, EE was roughly simu-
lated for the uplink massive MIMO system when the base
station (BS) employs different detectors [4]. However, the
realistic power consumption consists of not only the trans-
mission power but also the circuit power [14]. Therefore,
the relationship between the EE and SE needs further anal-
ysis. As for the reliability, because most technical details
have not been fixed for the practical application, such as
channel coding scheme, there is little work performed for
the massive MIMO system up to now, apart from some
simple analysis and rough simulations [2, 15, 16].
In this paper, we investigate the performance for the
downlink massive MIMO system using ZF precoding in
the single-cell scenario. Considering both the large-scale
fading and fast fading, the tight lower bound of average
area SE (A2 SE), regarded as the approximate expression,
is derived, when the UTs are uniformly distributed in the
cell. For given the number of transmission antennas and
the equivalent transmission signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the
optimal number of UTs is attained to maximise the A2 SE.
After formulating the realistic power consumption model
in consideration of both the transmission power and cir-
cuit power, the EE-A2 SE trade-off is developed utilising
the approximate A2 SE and EE definition. Based on the
trade-off, the optimal EE with respect to A2 SE is deduced
according to convex optimization theory. To evaluate the
reliability of the massive MIMO system, we derive two
closed-forms for the outage probability and bit error ratio
(BER) taking advantage of the received SNR character-
istic. In brief, the relationship between the system per-
formance and some related parameters is discussed for
the downlink massive MIMO system using ZF precod-
ing in single-cell environment, and the multi-cell scenario
with inter-cell interference or pilot contamination will be
considered in the future.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2
introduces the system model and some basic assumptions.
Figure 1. System model for the massive multiple-input multiple-output system.
1220
The approximate A2 SE is derived and the optimal number
of UTs maximising A2 SE is deduced in Section 3. Then,
the EE-A2 SE trade-off and the optimal EE are attained
in Section 4. Section 5 evaluates the reliability, including
both the outage probability and BER. Section 6 presents
simulation results, and Section 7 concludes this paper.
Notations: Uppercase boldface letters and lowercase
boldface letters denote matrices and vectors, respectively.
./T , ./H and ./1 represent the transpose, conjugate
transpose and pseudo-inverse of matrix/vector, respec-
tively. diagfag is a diagonal square matrix whose main
diagonal is formed by vector a. EΠdenotes the mathe-
matical expectation. Constant e is the base of natural log-
arithms. kk represents the Euclidian 2-norm. N .;  2 /
denotes the real Gaussian distribution with mean  and
variance  2 . CN .;  2 / is the complex Gaussian dis-
tribution with mean  and real/imaginary component
variance  2 =2.
2. SYSTEM MODEL
Just as depicted in Figure 1, one BS equipped with N
antennas serves K single-antenna UTs with the same time-
frequency resource. The difference between the number of
transmission antennas and the number of UTs is defined
as the degrees of freedom (DOF), noted as  D N  K.
Similar to [1–4], the flat Rayleigh fading MIMO channel is
considered in this paper. We assume that the perfect down-
link channel state information (CSI) can be acquired at the
BS by reciprocity when the UTs send pilots on the uplink
in the time division duplex system.
Assuming that the channel matrix from the BS to K
UTs is G D D1=2 H. D D diagfˇ1 ; ˇ2 ;    ; ˇK g is the
large-scale fading matrix and ˇk D dk˛ & , where  is
constant related to the carrier frequency and the antenna
gain, dk is the distance between the BS and the kth UT,
˛ 2 Œ2; 6 is the path loss exponent, & is a log-normal
 
2 .
shadow fading variable, namely, 10log10 &  N 0; sh
 T  T
H D h1 ;    ; hTK 2 C KN is the fast fading channel
Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 25:1219–1230 (2014) © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 L. Zhao et al.

matrix, its elements hk n  CN .0; 1/ .k D 1; 2;    ; KI 3. AVERAGE AREA SPECTRUM

n D 1; 2;    ; N / are independent and identically dis- EFFICIENCY
tributed complex Gaussian variables.
The received signal of the kth UT can be expressed as This section analyses the A2 SE and derives its lower
bound for the massive MIMO system using ZF precod-
p
yk D ˇ k hk x C n k (1) ing. Further, regarding the lower bound as the approximate
A2 SE, the optimal number of UTs maximising the A2 SE
is deduced for given the number of transmission antennas.
where x is the transmission signal vector formed by
 ZF pre-

coding and modulation symbols and nk  CN 0; k2 is
the additive white Gaussian noise at the kth UT. Based on 3.1. Average area SE
the fast fading matrix H, the ZF precoding employed by
the BS can be written as In order to attain the lower bound of the system A2 SE, the
distribution characteristics of both the large-scale fading
 1 and fast fading are first analysed as follows.
V D HH HHH (2) According to [17, 18], when the UTs are uniformly dis-
tributed in the cell with radius R, the probability density
and its normalised form is function (PDF) of the distance dk can be written as

2r
W D Œw1 ; w2 ;    ; wK  (3) fdk .r/ D ; r 2 .r0 ; R/ (9)
R2  r02

where r0 is a relatively small value compared withthecell

wk D vk = kvk k (4) radius R. Then, we can attain the expectation E dk˛ 
2R˛ =.˛ C 2/. Based on (7) and the distribution of shadow
where vector vk is the kth column of matrix V. Then, the fading in Section 2, we can arrive at
transmission signal vector x can be expressed as
h i  2  ˛  h 1 i
1
E Ik DK E dk E &
K
X p PT
xD wk p k sk (5) "  2 #
 2 2R˛ 1 ln 10
kD1 DK exp sh (10)
PT ˛ C 2 2 10
where pk and sk are the power allocation value and 2 K
modulation symbol for the kth UT, respectively. ,K ,
ˇPT T
Similar to [1, 2, 4], equal power allocation is adopted
at the BS for different UTs, namely, pk D p D PT =K where T represents the equivalent total transmission SNR,
.k D 1; 2;    ; K/, where PT is the total transmission namely,
power. The same noise power is assumed for different UTs,
namely, k2 D  2 .k D 1; 2;    ; K/. For convenience, we ˇPT
T D (11)
define the total transmission SNR for the kth UT as 2

ˇk and ˇ denotes the equivalent large-scale fading, namely,

Tk D PT (6)
2 "  #
˛C2 1 ln 10 2
and the individual transmission SNR for the kth UT as ˇD exp  sh (12)
2R˛ 2 10

ˇk ˇ PT 
Ik D 2
p D k2 D Tk (7) Denote
  K K

 1 1
Therefore, the received SNR of the kth UT can be briefly k D kvk k2 D HHH (13)
kk
expressed as
where ŒAmn is the .m; n/th component of matrix A. Then,
k D Ik kvk k2 (8) k is a Gamma random variable with parameters .N K C
1; 1/ according to random matrix theory [3,19], namely, the
With the established system model and the rational PDF of k is
assumptions, we will investigate the A2 SE and EE for the
1
overall system and link reliability for a single UT in the fk .x/ D x N K ex ; x > 0 (14)
following sections, respectively.
.N  K C 1/

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 L. Zhao et al.

R1
where
.z/ D 0 t z1 et dt is the Gamma function. be written as follows for given the number of transmission
 
Therefore, we can obtain E k1 D .N  K/1 . antennas:
Based on [17, 18], when the multiple UTs are uniformly ( )
distributed in the whole cell, the A2 SE of the entire system o o T  1
S D K log2   (18)
can be expressed as W0 .T  1/ e1
2 3
K
X if and only if the number of UTs meets
S DE4 log2 .1 C k /5 D KE Œlog2 .1 C Ik k / ,( )
kD1 o T  1
(15) K D N T   C T  1 (19)
W0 .T  1/ e1
Owing to the convexity of the function log2 .1 C 1=x/
and using the Jensen inequality E Œlog2 .1 C 1=x/ >  
where the special function W0 .x/ W e1 ; C1 !
log2 .1 C 1=EŒx/ [3, 4], the lower bound of A2 SE can be
Œ1; C1/ is the first real branch of the Lambert function
written as
and meets W0 .x/eW0 .x/ D x [21].
!
1
S > Klog2 1 C  1   1  (16) Proof . Just as shown in (17), A2 SE S is a function of
E k E Ik the number of UTs K. The first order partial derivative of
   1  S .K/ can be written as
Substituting E k1 and E Ik into (16) leads to the  
lower bound of A2 SE as shown in the following theorem. ln 1 C N K  T 
K T  K K
C 1 N T
@S N
D (20)
Theorem 1. When the BS employs ZF precoding in the @K ln 2
downlink massive MIMO system, the lower bound of the
Further, the second order partial derivative of S .K/ can be
system A2 SE is given by
expressed as

 
N
S > Klog2 1 C  1 T (17) @2 S N 2 T2 1
K 2
D <0 (21)
@K K ln 2 .K C .N  K/ T /2
where T is the equivalent total transmission SNR in (11).
Therefore, S .K/ is a concave function with respect to the
number of UTs K, and there exists a unique globally opti-
Simulations are implemented in Section 6, and the
mal number of UTs maximising the A2 SE according to
numerical A2 SE approximates the theoretical lower bound.
convex optimization theory [22].
Hence, the lower bound of A2 SE is tight enough, and it is
Taking advantage of the stationary condition achieving
rational to replace the actual A2 SE with its lower bound in
the maximum A2 SE, namely, @S=@K D 0 [22], we have
the rest analysis of this paper without inducing much trou-
ble, just as [3, 4, 20] did. We will also say ‘A2 SE’ instead   N
N T
of the ‘lower bound of A2 SE’ without causing confusion. ln 1 C  1 T D K  (22)
Theorem 1 shows the relationship among the A2 SE S , K 1C N
K  1 T
the number of transmission antennas N , the number of
UTs K and the equivalent transmission SNR T . It indi- Define  D N =K, Equation (22) can be simplified into
cates that the A2 SE can be improved by deploying more
transmission antennas at the BS or boosting the equivalent T
transmission SNR. However, the relationship between the ln .1 C .  1/ T / D (23)
1 C .  1/ T
A2 SE and the number of UTs needs further discussion in
the next subsection. Denote y D 1 C .  1/ T , Equation (23) can be further
transformed into
3.2. Maximum A2 SE T  1 Ty1
.T  1/ e1 D e > e1 (24)
y
This part analyses the relationship between the A2 SE and
the number of multiple UTs when the A2 SE is approxi- According to the definition of the Lambert function [21],
mated by its lower bound. To be more specific, the opti- we can attain
mal number of UTs K o achieving the maximum A2 SE
S o will be deduced for given the number of transmission T  1
yD   (25)
antennas N . W0 .T  1/ e1

Theorem 2. When the BS employs ZF precoding in the Substituting  and y into Equation (25) gives rise to
downlink massive MIMO system, the maximum A2 SE can the optimal number of UTs K o in Equation (19). Further,

1222 Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 25:1219–1230 (2014) © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 L. Zhao et al.

substituting Equation (19) into Equation (17) leads to the where

maximum A2 SE in Equation (18). 
ln 2
SQ D S (29)
Equation (19) shows that the optimal number of UTs K
K o is the function of the number of transmission anten-
nas N and the equivalent transmission SNR T . Because and
W0 .x/ is a monotonically increasing function for given " #
x > e1 , the optimal number of multiple UTs increases  2 ln 2 ln 2
Œa; b D ; PC  a (30)
with the equivalent transmission SNR, namely, K o ! ˇ N  K K
N .T ! 1/. Therefore, Equation (19) implies that the
optimal number of UTs K o can approximate to the num-
Proof . According to the approximate expression of A2 SE
ber of transmission antennas N when the channel quality is
in Equation (17) and through minor transformations, one
good enough, namely, T ! 1. Theorem 2 indicates that
expression of the equivalent transmission SNR can be
the maximum A2 SE is only related to the number of trans-
written as
mission antennas and the equivalent transmission SNR and
can be improved by deploying more transmission antennas K  S=K 
or boosting the equivalent transmission SNR. T D 2 1 (31)
N K

4. ENERGY EFFICIENCY Taking advantage of the realistic power consumption

model in Equation (26) and the EE definition in Equation
The EE of wireless communication networks has been (27), another expression of the equivalent transmission
paid more attention with the increasing carbon emissions SNR is
[14, 18, 23]. Because the BS with massive antennas can
focus its emitted energy with extremely narrow beam into ˇPT ˇ .P†  PC / ˇ .S Eb  PC /
T D 2
D 2
D (32)
the spatial direction that the terminals are located, the radi-   2
ated power can be made inversely proportional to the num-
ber of transmission antennas with no impairment of SE Then, through combining Equations (31) and (32), we can
under the perfect CSI [3,4]. In this section, the realistic EE- obtain the following equation:
A2 SE trade-off and the optimal EE with respect to A2 SE
will be derived in consideration of both the transmission ˇ .S Eb  PC / K  S=K 
2
D 2 1 (33)
power and circuit power.  N K

Simplifying Equation (33), EE Eb can be expressed as a

4.1. EE-A2 SE trade-off
function of A2 SE S , namely,
According to the realistic power consumption model pre-  ln 2

 2 K ln 2 S ln 2
sented in [14,18,24], the total power consumption P† con- ˇ  N K K
eK 1 C K PC
sists of both the transmission power PT and circuit power Eb .S / D ln 2
(34)
PC , namely, K S

PT Denoting SQ as Equation (29), a and b as Equation (30),

P† D C PC (26)
 Equation (34) can be transformed into (28) in Theorem 3.

where  2 Œ0; 1 is the efficiency of power amplifier and the
circuit power PC is mainly caused by circuit dissipation.
Based on the metric J/bit [14, 23, 24], the EE of the
downlink massive MIMO system can be formulated as
Eb D P† =S
From Theorem 3, it is easy to check that deploying more
transmission antennas can enhance the system EE. How-
ever, the relationship among the EE, A2 SE and the number
of UTs will be discussed in the next part.
(27)

Regarding the lower bound as the approximate A2 SE, 4.2. Optimal EE

the trade-off between EE and A2 SE is concluded in the
following theorem. In order to analyse the optimal EE with respect to A2 SE,
we formulate the following optimization problem:
Theorem 3. When the BS employs ZF precoding in the
downlink massive MIMO system, the EE-A2 SE trade-off  
Ebo D max Eb SQ (35)
can be given as Q
S2R

Q
aeS C b where R represents the nonnegative real number set. The
Eb D (28)
SQ following theorem gives a solution to the problem (35).

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 L. Zhao et al.

Theorem 4. When the ZF precoding is employed by the Then, the optimal equivalent transmission SNR achieving
BS in the downlink massive MIMO system, the optimal EE the optimal EE can be written as
with respect to A2 SE can be achieved if and only if
K  W0 .$/C1 
K To D e 1 (45)
SEbo D ŒW0 .$ / C 1 (36) N K
ln 2
and the optimal power consumption can be expressed as
and the optimal EE can be given as
o  2 K  W0 .$/C1 
Ebo D a exp ŒW0 .$ / C 1 (37) P† D e  1 C PC (46)
ˇ N  K
where From Theorem 4, there indeed exists a unique globally
 optimal EE with respect to A2 SE. The optimal EE and the
1 ˇ N  K
$D PC  1 (38) corresponding A2 SE will be simultaneously enhanced or
e 2 K
impaired when they are as the function of the number of
Q is a function of UTs. However, it is intractable to analyse the relationship
Proof . As stated in Theorem 3, EE Eb .S/
Q can be
Q The first order derivative of Eb .S/ between the optimal EE and the number of UTs as of the
the variable S.
transcendental Lambert function, and we will show some
expressed as
representative simulation results in Section 6.
Q
@Eb a.SQ  1/eS  b
D (39) 5. RELIABILITY
@SQ SQ 2

Q can be Because massive MIMO was proposed in recent years [1],

Further, the second order derivative of Eb .S/
the application to the practical network needs further dis-
written as
cussion, and most related technical details have not been
h 2
i fixed, such as the realistic channel model and channel cod-
Q
@2 Eb aeS .SQ  1/ C 1 C 2b
ing [16]. Therefore, only rough simulation results of the
D >0 (40)
@SQ 2 SQ 3 uncoded BER were given in [2], and the simple symbol
error ratio was discussed for the uplink massive MIMO
Therefore, Eb .S/Q is a convex function related to SQ , and system in [15]. In this section, we try our best to give
there exists a unique globally optimal EE Ebo [22]. the theoretical reliability of the downlink massive MIMO
According to the stationary condition achieving the system using the ZF precoding, including both the outage
optimal EE Ebo [22], namely, probability and un-coded BER.

Q
@Eb a.SQ  1/eS  b 5.1. Outage probability
D D0 (41)
@SQ SQ 2
The outage probability of the kth UT can be defined as
we can attain the following equation:
k
Pout .th / D P fk < th g (47)
Q b
.SQ  1/eS1 D e1 > e1 (42)
a
where th is the received SNR threshold.
Taking advantage of the definition of the Lambert function According to the received SNR Equation (8) and the
[21], we can attain the A2 SE achieving the optimal EE as PDF of k stated in Equation (14), the outage probability
of the kth UT with respect to the individual transmission

ln 2 b 1 SNR Ik can be expressed as
SQEbo D S o D W0 e C1 (43)
K Eb a
k
Pout .th ; Ik / D P fIk k < th g
Substituting Equation (30) into Equation (43) and denoting
D P f k < th =Ik g
Equation (38) give rise to Equation (36). Taking Equation Z th =Ik
(41) into Equation (28) leads to the optimal EE expression x N K ex (48)
D dx
in Equation (37).  0
.N  KC1/
. C 1; th =Ik /
According to Equation (17) in Theorem 1 and Equation D

.C1/
(36) in Theorem 4, the following equation is valid:

  where  D N R K is the DOF defined in Section 2
N K x
and .˛; x/ D 0 t ˛1 et dt is the incomplete Gamma
Klog2 1 C  1 T D .W0 .$ / C 1/ (44)
K ln 2 function [25].

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 L. Zhao et al.

Moreover, taking advantage of the PDF of k and the Because the expression of Q-function in Equation (54) is
instantaneous received SNR in Equation (8), the average intractable for integral, we replace it with the following
received SNR of the kth UT can be given as approximate Equation [27]:

Nk D E Œk  D Ik E Œ k  D . C 1/ Ik (49) 1 x2

Q.x/  p e 2 ;x > 0 (55)
2 x
Substituting Equation (49) into Equation (48), we can
attain the outage probability with respect to the average Substituting the approximate Equation (55) and the PDF of
received SNR Nk as k stated in Equation (14) into Equation (54), we can attain

k . C 1; . C 1/ th =Nk / Z 2
Pout .th ; Nk / D (50) k cM eIk dM x x N K ex dx
1

.C1/ P eM  p
0 2dM Ik x
.N  K C 1/
From Equations (48) and (50), the outage probability of R1 1 2
(56)
the kth UT is the function of DOF  . According to the cM 0 x N K 2 e.Ik dM C1/x dx
D p
characteristic of the incomplete Gamma function [25], the 2dM
.N  K C 1/ Ik
outage probability will perform better by deploying more
transmission antennas and worse by multiplexing more Taking advantage of Gamma distribution [25], Equation
UTs. Physically, it is caused by the change of DOF. To be (56) can be simplified into
more specific, larger DOF can reap more diversity gain and  .
vice versa. 1
k cM
N  K C 2
.N  K C 1/
P eM  (57)
2dM p   1
2 C 1 N KC 2
5.2. BER performance Ik Ik dM

When the massive MIMO system adopts the Gray-coded Because of  D N  K, Equation (57) can be transformed
square M-QAM modulation, the instantaneous BER can be into Equation (53). 
expressed as follows [26]:
q According
 to Theorem 5, if we ignore the impact of
BERM .k /  cM Q 2dM2  (51)
 C 12 =
. C 1/, the BER of the kth UT is propor-
k
 
2 C 1 .C1=2/  1=2 , namely, the diver-
tional to Ik dM
R1   p Ik
where Q.x/ D x exp u2 =2 du= 2 is the Q- sity degree approximates to  C 1. Further, the BER will
function and perform better by deploying more transmission antennas at
8 the BS and worse by multiplexing more UTs.
ˆ
< .1; 1/; M D 2;
 p q
.cM ; dM / D 11= M 3=2 6. NUMERICAL RESULTS
:̂ 2 log pM ; M 1 ; M > 4
2 AND ANALYSIS
(52)
The following theorem shows the relationship between the In order to validate these theoretical results in Sections
average BER and the individual transmission SNR Ik . 3–5, numerical results are implemented for the perfor-
mance of the downlink massive MIMO system in this
Theorem 5. When the downlink massive MIMO sys-
section. Abbreviations ‘simul.’ and ‘theor.’ represent simu-
tem adopts the ZF precoding and Gray-coded square M-
lation and theoretical results, respectively, in the following
QAM modulation, the average BER of the kth UT can be
figures ‘opt.’ denote the optimal value.
approximated as
With different numbers of transmission antennas N
 . and different equivalent transmission SNRs T , Figure 2
1

 C
. C 1/
k
P eM .Ik / 
cM 2
(53) depicts the system A2 SE S versus the number of UTs K.
  1p
2dM 2 C 1 C 2  It shows that the lower bound of A2 SE is indeed lower
Ik dM Ik
than the simulation result; however, they are close to each
where  D N  K is the DOF defined in Section 2 and Ik other. Therefore, it is rational to replace the actual A2 SE
is the individual transmission SNR of the kth UT shown in with its lower bound without causing much trouble. The
Equation (7). maximum A2 SE with the optimal number of UTs deduced
in Theorem 2 is indeed on the top of the curve, which
Proof . According to the approximate expression of the validates the theoretical work for the maximum A2 SE in
instantaneous BER in Equation (51), the average BER of Section 3. Further, Figure 3 shows the A2 SE S versus the
the kth UT can be expressed as equivalent transmission SNR T with different numbers of
Z 1 q transmission antennas N and different numbers of UTs K.
k
P eM  cM Q 2dM2  x f .x/dx
k (54) Figure 3 together with Figure 2 indicates that the A2 SE can
Ik
0 be improved by deploying more transmission antennas or

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 L. Zhao et al.

Figure 2. Average area spectrum efficiency S versus the number of user terminals K with different numbers of transmission antennas
N and different equivalent transmission signal-to-noise ratios T .

Figure 3. Average area spectrum efficiency S versus the equivalent transmission signal-to-noise ratio T with different numbers of
transmission antennas N and different numbers of multiple user terminals K .

Table I. Related parameters for energy efficiency simulation [18,24].

Parameter Value

Constant  1
Path loss exponent ˛ 3.7
Shadow fading standard deviation sh 8 (dB)
Noise power  2 -174 (dBm/Hz)
Efficiency of PA  0.5
Circuit power PC 0.2 (mW/Hz)

PA, power amplifier.

1226 Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 25:1219–1230 (2014) © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 L. Zhao et al.

Figure 4. Energy efficiency Eb versus average area spectrum efficiency S with different numbers of transmission antennas N and
different numbers of multiple user terminals K when the cell radius R D 500 m.

Figure 5. Optimal energy efficiency Ebo versus the number of multiple user terminals K with different numbers of transmission
antennas N and different cell radiuses R .

boosting the equivalent transmission SNR. The maximum
A2 SE in Theorem 2 is the upper limit for given the number
of transmission antennas at the BS.
The related parameters are listed in Table I in order
to evaluate the EE for the downlink massive MIMO sys-
tem using ZF precoding. The EE-A2 SE trade-off and the
optimal EE Ebo with different numbers of transmission
antennas N and different numbers of UTs K are shown
in Figure 4, when the cell radius R is 500 m. As can be
seen from Figure 4, for given the number of transmission
antennas and the number of UTs, the EE first decreases and
then increases when the A2 SE increases from 0 bits/s/Hz to
infinite. There exists a unique globally optimal EE, and the
optimal EE deduced in Theorem 4 is indeed on the bottom
of the EE-A2 SE trade-off curve. The EE-A2 SE trade-off
curve and the optimal EE will be improved when the num-
ber of transmission antennas increases from 64 to 256.
Figure 5 shows some representative results of the optimal
EE versus the number of UTs K with different numbers
of transmission antennas N and different cell radiuses R.

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 L. Zhao et al.

Figure 6. Outage probability performance versus the individual transmission signal-to-noise ratio Ik with different numbers of
transmission antennas N , different numbers of user terminals K and different received thresholds th .

Figure 7. Bit error ratio performance versus the individual transmission signal-to-noise ratio Ik with different modulation orders M
and different numbers of multiple user terminals K when the number of transmission antennas N D 64.

The optimal EE first decreases and then increases when the
number of UTs varies from 1 to the number of transmission
antennas. It implies that multiplexing a rational number of
UTs also can enhance the optimal EE. Moreover, Figure 5
checks that shrinking the cell radius or deploying more
transmission antennas can better the optimal EE and cut
power consumption.
When the BS adopts ZF precoding in the downlink mas-
sive MIMO system, Figure 6 depicts the outage probability
versus the individual transmission SNR Ik with different
numbers of transmission antennas N , different numbers of
UTs K and different received thresholds th . Simulation
results coincide to theoretical results well, which validates
our theoretical expression. For given the received thresh-
old, outage probability will perform better by deploying
more transmission antennas as of the larger DOF and worse
by multiplexing more UTs because of the lower DOF.
Observing curves with different received thresholds, out-

1228 Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 25:1219–1230 (2014) © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
 L. Zhao et al.
Figure 8. Bit error ratio versus the number of transmission antennas N with different numbers of multiple user terminals K .
age probability will be elevated by the higher received
threshold requirement, which is in accordance with the
common sense.
With different modulation orders M and different num-
bers of UTs K, the BER performance versus the individual
transmission SNR Ik is shown in Figure 7 when the num-
ber of transmission antennas N is 64. Figure 8 depicts
the BER performance versus the number of transmission
antennas N with different modulation orders M and differ-
ent numbers of UTs K. In order to separate the curves with
different modulation orders in Figure 8, they are depicted
with different individual transmission SNRs without loss
of generality. Both Figures 7 and 8 indicate that simulation
results approximate the theoretical results derived in Theo-
rem 5, which validates the BER expression. With the same
modulation order, BER will perform worse by increasing
the number of UTs as of the lower DOF or diversity gain.
For given the number of UTs in Figure 7, the BER with
higher-order modulation performs worse than with lower-
order modulation. It is also easy to see that the BER per-
forms better by deploying more transmission antennas at
the BS owing to the large DOF or diversity gain in Figure 8.
7. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the performance of the downlink massive
MIMO system using ZF precoding is comprehensively
investigated, including the A2 SE, EE and reliability. The
tight lower bound of A2 SE is derived in consideration of
both the large-scale fading and fast fading. Regarding the
lower bound as the approximate A2 SE, the optimal num-
ber of UTs maximising A2 SE and the closed-form of the
maximum A2 SE are deduced. Then, the trade-off between
EE and A2 SE is established based on the realistic power
Trans. Emerging Tel. Tech. 25:1219–1230 (2014) © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ett
consumption model. Further, the optimal EE with respect
to A2 SE is attained utilising convex optimization theory.
In order to evaluate the reliability, we derive an accu-
rate expression for the outage probability and an approx-
imate expression for the BER analytically. Simulation and
theoretical results show that deploying more transmission
antennas can simultaneously improve the A2 SE, EE and
reliability. There indeed exist two numbers of UTs max-
imising the A2 SE and minimising the optimal EE, respec-
tively. Both the outage probability and BER will perform
worse by multiplexing more UTs as of the decreased DOF.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the Programme for
New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-
11-0600), National Basic Research Program of China
(2012CB316005), China Natural Science Funding
(61271183) and National Key Technology R&D Program
of China (2013ZX03003005).
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