Analysis of outage probability for massive MIMO systems under multi-cell and imperfect CSI environments

We analyze the outage probability for a massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system employing maximum ratio transmission (MRT) under a multi-cell scenario. As cells become smaller, it will be even more necessary to analyze the outage probability considering interference from neighboring cells. Under a multi-cell environment, communication performance can be substantially compromised by channel estimation errors and inter-cell interference (ICI). We investigate the distribution of signal-to-interference and noise ratio (SINR) in a massive MIMO system and formulate a novel mathematical model for the outage probability. Simulation results show the validity of the derived mathematical model.