A Survey on User-Centric Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems

The mobile data traffic has been exponentially growing during the last decades, which has been enabled by the densification of the network infrastructure in terms of increased cell density (i.e., ultra-dense network (UDN)) and/or increased number of active antennas per access point (AP) (i.e., massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO)). However, neither UDN nor mMIMO will meet the increasing data rate demands of the sixth generation (6G) wireless communications due to the inter-cell interference and large quality-of-service variations, respectively. Cell-free (CF) mMIMO, which combines the best aspects of UDN and mMIMO, is viewed as a key solution to this issue. In such systems, each user equipment (UE) is served by a preferred set of surrounding APs cooperatively. In this paper, we provide a survey of the state-of-the-art literature on CF mMIMO. As a starting point, the significance and the basic properties of CF mMIMO are highlighted. We then present the canonical framework, where the essential details (i.e., transmission procedure and mathematical system model) are discussed. Next, we provide a deep look at the resource allocation and signal processing problems related to CF mMIMO and survey the up-to-date schemes and algorithms. After that, we discuss the practical issues when implementing CF mMIMO. Potential future directions are then pointed out. Finally, we conclude this paper with a summary of the key lessons learned in this field. This paper aims to provide a starting point for anyone who wants to conduct research on CF mMIMO for future wireless networks.