Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is a key technology for the 5th generation (5G) of wireless communication systems. Massive MIMO has the potential of bringing orders-of-magnitude improvements in spectral and energy efficiency. By exploiting the multi-dimensional properties of wireless channels with hundreds of antenna elements, massive MIMO systems can significantly increase the channel capacity and link reliability of wireless communication using simple transmit and receive signal processing strategies. However, massive MIMO is still an emerging field and there are many theoretical and practical issues which remain to be addressed. Among these problems are interference mitigation and management, resource allocation, the amount of feedback information for precoding and coordination, implementation and energy consumption issues, scalability and coordination between access points strategies. The aim of this special issue is to capture recent research contributions and advances in massive MIMO systems, and their applications to 5G wireless networks.
Edited by: Rodrigo de Lamare, A. Chockalingam, Christoph Studer, Jakob Hoydis and Inkyu Lee