Enabling low-power massive MIMO with ternary ADCs for AIoT sensing

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Liu, Shengheng, Fu, Ningning
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911106104033280
author Liu, Shengheng
Fu, Ningning
author_facet Liu, Shengheng
Fu, Ningning
contents The proliferation of networked devices and the surging demand for ubiquitous intelligence have given rise to the artificial intelligence of things (AIoT). However, the utilization of high-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and numerous radio frequency chains significantly raises power consumption. This paper explores a cost-effective solution using ternary ADCs (T-ADCs) in massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems for low-power AIoT and specifically addresses channel sensing challenges. The channel is first estimated through a pilot-aided scheme and refined using a joint-pilot-and-data (JPD) approach. To assess the performance limits of this two-threshold ADC system, the analysis includes its hardware-ideal counterpart, the parallel one-bit ADCs (PO-ADCs) and a realistic scenario where noise variance is unknown at the receiver is considered. Analytical findings indicate that the JPD scheme effectively mitigates performance degradation in channel estimation due to coarse quantization effects under mild conditions, without necessitating additional pilot overhead. For deterministic and random channels, we propose modified expectation maximization (EM) and variational inference EM estimators, respectively. Extensive simulations validate the theoretical results and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed estimators in terms of mean square error and symbol error rate, which showcases the feasibility of implementing T-ADCs and the associated JPD scheme for greener AIoT smart sensing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_11234
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enabling low-power massive MIMO with ternary ADCs for AIoT sensing
Liu, Shengheng
Fu, Ningning
Signal Processing
The proliferation of networked devices and the surging demand for ubiquitous intelligence have given rise to the artificial intelligence of things (AIoT). However, the utilization of high-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) and numerous radio frequency chains significantly raises power consumption. This paper explores a cost-effective solution using ternary ADCs (T-ADCs) in massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems for low-power AIoT and specifically addresses channel sensing challenges. The channel is first estimated through a pilot-aided scheme and refined using a joint-pilot-and-data (JPD) approach. To assess the performance limits of this two-threshold ADC system, the analysis includes its hardware-ideal counterpart, the parallel one-bit ADCs (PO-ADCs) and a realistic scenario where noise variance is unknown at the receiver is considered. Analytical findings indicate that the JPD scheme effectively mitigates performance degradation in channel estimation due to coarse quantization effects under mild conditions, without necessitating additional pilot overhead. For deterministic and random channels, we propose modified expectation maximization (EM) and variational inference EM estimators, respectively. Extensive simulations validate the theoretical results and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed estimators in terms of mean square error and symbol error rate, which showcases the feasibility of implementing T-ADCs and the associated JPD scheme for greener AIoT smart sensing.
title Enabling low-power massive MIMO with ternary ADCs for AIoT sensing
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11234