On the impact of receiver imperfections on the MMSE-IRC receiver performance in 5G networks

The usage of Minimum Mean Square Error - Interference Rejection Combining (MMSE-IRC) receivers is expected to be a significant performance booster in the ultra-dense deployment of small cells envisioned by an upcoming 5th generation (5G) Radio Access Technology (RAT). However, hardware limitations of the radio-frequency front-end and poor covariance matrix estimation may severely compromise its ideal gains. In this paper, we evaluate the network performance of MMSE-IRC receivers by including the effects of the receiver imperfections as well as realistic covariance matrix estimates. System level simulation results confirm that a realistic MMSE-IRC receiver can achieve throughput gains close to ideal, provided a reasonably high resolution Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) as well as a supportive radio frame format design are used.