Network Survivability in User-Centric Distributed Massive MIMO with Segmented Fronthaul: Centralized and Distributed Indoor Processing

This work investigates hardware failure compensation in a segmented fronthaul structure, operating under the User-Centric (UC) distributed massive MIMO (D-mMIMO) communication paradigm, also referred to as cell-free massive MIMO.The study evaluates the effects of failures, protection schemes, performance degradation, and operational costs across different user densities, taking into account serial fronthaul connections with limited capacity and dynamic bit allocation.Findings highlight that in most configurations, a cross-connection (CC) failure compensation outperforms alternatives involving duplication, offering the best balance between reliability and cost in centralized and distributed processing, benefiting particularly from the latter.