Maximum-Likelihood Active Device Detection and Channel Estimation in One-Bit MIMO System

The future machine-type communication in internet-of-things (IoT) systems involves a massive number of devices sporadically communicating with a base station (BS) equipped with multiple antennas. Detecting active devices and estimating their associated channels are crucial but challenging due to the large number of potential devices and the small fraction of active devices. Existing studies assume high-resolution analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) at the BS, while there is a growing interest in implementing low-resolution ADCs, particularly one-bit ADCs, in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. This paper focuses on the joint one-bit active device detection and channel estimation problem. We consider the maximum-likelihood approach and propose a novel expectation maximization (EM) algorithm with acceleration. On the theoretical aspect, we provide the convergent computational complexity analysis for the accelerated EM algorithm. The proposed method, evaluated through numerical simulations, outperforms benchmark algorithms in terms of both estimation accuracy and computational complexity.