Scalable and Convergent Generalized Power Iteration Precoding for Massive MIMO Systems

In massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, achieving high spectral efficiency (SE) often requires advanced precoding algorithms whose complexity scales rapidly with the number of antennas, limiting practical deployment. In this paper, we develop a scalable and computationally efficient generalized power iteration precoding (GPIP) framework for massive MIMO systems under both perfect and imperfect channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT). By exploiting the low-dimensional subspace property of optimal precoders, we reformulate the high-dimensional beamforming problem into a lower-dimensional weight optimization that scales with the number of users rather than antennas. We further extend this framework to the imperfect CSIT scenario by showing that stationary solutions reside in a combined subspace spanned by the estimated channel and error covariance matrices, enabling a robust design via low-rank approximation. To reduce computational cost, we leverage the Sherman-Morrison formula to simplify matrix inversions. Moreover, interpreting the GPIP update as a projected preconditioned gradient ascent method, we establish convergence guarantees and develop a stable and monotonic algorithm using a backtracking line search. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed methods achieve the highest SE performance compared to state-of-the-art linear precoders with significantly reduced complexity and convergence, highlighting their suitability for large-scale MIMO systems.