Performance analysis of ZF receivers with imperfect CSI for uplink massive MIMO systems

We consider the uplink of massive multiple-input multiple-output systems in a multicell environment. Since the base station (BS) estimates the channel state information (CSI) using the pilot signals transmitted from the users, each BS will have imperfect CSI in practice. Assuming zero-forcing method to eliminate the multi-user interference, we derive the exact analytical expressions for the probability density function of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio, the corresponding achievable rate, the outage probability, and the symbol error rate (SER) when the BS has imperfect CSI. An upper bound of the SER is also derived for an arbitrary number of antennas at the BS. Moreover, we derive the upper bound of the achievable rate for the case where the number of antennas at the BS goes to infinity, and the analysis is verified by presenting numerical results.