A Semidynamic Bidirectional Clustering Algorithm for Downlink Cell-Free Massive Distributed Antenna System

Cell-free massive distributed antenna system (CF-MDAS) can further reduce the access distance between mobile stations (MSs) and remote access points (RAPs), which brings a lower propagation loss and higher multiplexing gain. However, the interference caused by the overlapping coverage areas of distributed RAPs will severely degrade the system performance in terms of the sum-rate. Since that clustering RAPs can mitigate the interference, in this paper, we investigate a novel clustering algorithm for a downlink CF-MDAS with the limited-capacity backhaul. To reduce the backhaul burden and mitigate interference effectively, a semidynamic bidirectional clustering algorithm based on the long-term channel state information (CSI) is proposed, which has a low computational complexity. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can efficiently achieve a higher sum-rate than that of the static clustering one, which is close to the curve obtained by dynamic clustering algorithm using the short-term CSI. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm always reveals a significant performance gain regardless of the size of the networks.