English

Cell-Free XL-MIMO Meets Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning: Architectures, Challenges, and Future Directions

Information Theory 2023-10-04 v2 Signal Processing math.IT

Abstract

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) and extremely large-scale MIMO (XL-MIMO) are regarded as promising innovations for the forthcoming generation of wireless communication systems. Their significant advantages in augmenting the number of degrees of freedom have garnered considerable interest. In this article, we first review the essential opportunities and challenges induced by XL-MIMO systems. We then propose the enhanced paradigm of cell-free XL-MIMO, which incorporates multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) to provide a distributed strategy for tackling the problem of high-dimension signal processing and costly energy consumption. Based on the unique near-field characteristics, we propose two categories of the low-complexity design, i.e., antenna selection and power control, to adapt to different cell-free XL-MIMO scenarios and achieve the maximum data rate. For inspiration, several critical future research directions pertaining to green cell-free XL-MIMO systems are presented.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.02827,
  title  = {Cell-Free XL-MIMO Meets Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning: Architectures, Challenges, and Future Directions},
  author = {Zhilong Liu and Jiayi Zhang and Ziheng Liu and Hongyang Du and Zhe Wang and Dusit Niyato and Mohsen Guizani and Bo Ai},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.02827},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

9 pages, 6 figures, accepted by IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:23:26.884Z