Asymptotic Analysis of MIMO Multi-Cell Full-Duplex Networks

We study a multi-cell multi-user MIMO full-duplex network, where each base station (BS) has multiple antennas with full-duplex capability supporting single-antenna users with either full-duplex or half-duplex radios. We characterize the up- and downlink ergodic achievable rates for the case of linear precoders and receivers. The rate analysis includes practical constraints, such as imperfect self-interference cancellation, channel estimation error, training overhead, and pilot contamination. We show that the 2× gain of full duplex over half-duplex system remains in the asymptotic regime, where the number of BS antennas grows infinitely large. We numerically evaluate the finite SNR and antenna performance, which reveals that full-duplex networks can use significantly fewer antennas to achieve spectral efficiency gain over the half-duplex counterparts. In addition, the overall full-duplex gains can be achieved under realistic 3GPP multi-cell network settings despite the increased interference introduced in the full-duplex networks.