Energy efficiency of distributed massive MIMO systems

In this paper, we investigate energy efficiency (EE) of the traditional co-located and the distributed massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. First, we derive an approximate EE expression for both the idealistic and the realistic power consumption models. Then an optimal energy-efficient remote access unit (RAU) selection algorithm based on the distance between the mobile stations (MSs) and the RAUs are developed to maximize the EE for the downlink distributed massive MIMO systems under the realistic power consumption model. Numerical results show that the EE of the distributed massive MIMO systems is larger than the co-located massive MIMO systems under both the idealistic and realistic power consumption models, and the optimal EE can be obtained by the developed energy-efficient RAU selection algorithm.