LAUSR

Multiple remote antenna units (RAUs) cooperate to serve a certain user in cell-free distributed massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. Due to the different distances between each RAU and the user, asynchronous reception effects will occur. This paper studies the impacts of asynchronous reception effects on cell-free distributed massive MIMO systems. We first derive the minimum-mean-square error (MMSE) channel estimation under the asynchronous reception effects. Given the estimated channel state information, we derive the closed-form expressions of the user achievable rates with maximum ratio transmission (MRT) and regularized zero-forcing (RZF) precoders, which are further used to analyze the impacts of asynchronous reception effects. The accuracy of the closed-form expressions are verified. Simulation results demonstrate that asynchronous reception effects cause a non-negligible drop on the system spectral efficiency. Moreover, the performance degradation is proportional to the subcarrier sequence number and even more serious with the increasing of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or the number of antennas per RAU.