Uplink performance analysis of very large single-cell MU-MIMO system with MRC receiver

We consider the uplink of a single-cell multiuser MIMO-OFDM system with MRC receiver and large antenna arrays at the base station. Assuming that the channels are perfectly estimated by the uplink pilots, we analyze the uplink spectral efficiency, taking the pilot overhead into consideration. The closed-form expression for the uplink spectral efficiency is derived and the optimal number of users in such a system is discussed. Our studies also show that the per antenna performance gain decreases as the total antenna number increases. Numerical results are presented to verify our analysis.