A Unified Distributed Algorithm for Hybrid Near-Far Field Activity Detection in Cell-Free Massive MIMO

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lei, Jingreng, Li, Yang, Wang, Ziyue, Lin, Qingfeng, Liu, Ya-Feng, Wu, Yik-Chung
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lei, Jingreng
Li, Yang
Wang, Ziyue
Lin, Qingfeng
Liu, Ya-Feng
Wu, Yik-Chung
author_facet Lei, Jingreng
Li, Yang
Wang, Ziyue
Lin, Qingfeng
Liu, Ya-Feng
Wu, Yik-Chung
contents A great amount of endeavor has recently been devoted to activity detection for massive machine-type communications in cell-free multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. However, as the number of antennas at the access points (APs) increases, the Rayleigh distance that separates the near-field and far-field regions also expands, rendering the conventional assumption of far-field propagation alone impractical. To address this challenge, this paper establishes a covariance-based formulation that can effectively capture the statistical property of hybrid near-far field channels. Based on this formulation, we theoretically reveal that increasing the proportion of near-field channels enhances the detection performance. Furthermore, we propose a distributed algorithm, where each AP performs local activity detection and only exchanges the detection results to the central processing unit, thus significantly reducing the computational complexity and the communication overhead. Not only with convergence guarantee, the proposed algorithm is unified in the sense that it can handle single-cell or cell-free systems with either near-field or far-field devices as special cases. Simulation results validate the theoretical analyses and demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach compared with existing methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_15162
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Unified Distributed Algorithm for Hybrid Near-Far Field Activity Detection in Cell-Free Massive MIMO
Lei, Jingreng
Li, Yang
Wang, Ziyue
Lin, Qingfeng
Liu, Ya-Feng
Wu, Yik-Chung
Signal Processing
A great amount of endeavor has recently been devoted to activity detection for massive machine-type communications in cell-free multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. However, as the number of antennas at the access points (APs) increases, the Rayleigh distance that separates the near-field and far-field regions also expands, rendering the conventional assumption of far-field propagation alone impractical. To address this challenge, this paper establishes a covariance-based formulation that can effectively capture the statistical property of hybrid near-far field channels. Based on this formulation, we theoretically reveal that increasing the proportion of near-field channels enhances the detection performance. Furthermore, we propose a distributed algorithm, where each AP performs local activity detection and only exchanges the detection results to the central processing unit, thus significantly reducing the computational complexity and the communication overhead. Not only with convergence guarantee, the proposed algorithm is unified in the sense that it can handle single-cell or cell-free systems with either near-field or far-field devices as special cases. Simulation results validate the theoretical analyses and demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach compared with existing methods.
title A Unified Distributed Algorithm for Hybrid Near-Far Field Activity Detection in Cell-Free Massive MIMO
topic Signal Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.15162