In contrast to the prevalent assumption of rich multipath in information theoretic analysis of wireless channels, physical channels exhibit sparse multipath, especially at large bandwidths. We propose a model for sparse multipath fading channels and present results on the impact of sparsity on non-coherent capacity and reliability in the wideband regime. A key implication of sparsity is that the statistically independent degrees of freedom in the channel, that represent the delay-Doppler diversity afforded by multipath, scale at a sub-linear rate with the signal space dimension (time-bandwidth product). Our analysis is based on a training-based communication scheme that uses short-time Fourier (STF) signaling waveforms. Sparsity in delay-Doppler manifests itself as time-frequency coherence in the STF domain. From a capacity perspective, sparse channels are asymptotically coherent: the gap between coherent and non-coherent extremes vanishes in the limit of large signal space dimension without the need for peaky signaling. From a reliability viewpoint, there is a fundamental tradeoff between channel diversity and learnability that can be optimized to maximize the error exponent at any rate by appropriately choosing the signaling duration as a function of bandwidth.
We investigate the multipath fading relay channel in the limit of a large bandwidth, and in the non-coherent setting, where the channel state is unknown to all terminals, including the relay and the destination. We propose a hypergraph model of the wideband multipath fading relay channel, and show that its min-cut is achieved by a non-coherent peaky frequency binning scheme. The so-obtained lower bound on the capacity of the wideband multipath fading relay channel turns out to coincide with the block-Markov lower bound on the capacity of the wideband frequency-division Gaussian (FD-AWGN) relay…
In multipath systems, available degrees of freedom can be considered as a key performance indicator, since the channel capacity grows linearly with the available degrees of freedom. However, a fundamental question arises: given a size limitation on the observable region, what is the intrinsic number of degrees of freedom available in a wideband random multipath wavefield observed over a finite time interval? In this paper, we focus on answering this question by modelling the wavefield as a sum of orthogonal waveforms or spatial orders. We show that for each spatial order, (i) the observable wa…
This paper proposes novel joint channel estimation and beamforming approach for multicell wideband massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. Using our channel estimation and beamforming approach, we determine the number of cells $N_c$ that can utilize the same time and frequency resource while mitigating the effect of pilot contamination. The proposed approach exploits the multipath characteristics of wideband channels. Specifically, when the channel has $L$ multipath taps, it is shown that $N_c\leq L$ cells can reliably estimate the channels of their user equipments (UEs) and per…
This paper studies the ergodic capacity of time- and frequency-selective multipath fading channels in the ultrawideband (UWB) regime when training signals are used for channel estimation at the receiver. Motivated by recent measurement results on UWB channels, we propose a model for sparse multipath channels. A key implication of sparsity is that the independent degrees of freedom (DoF) in the channel scale sub-linearly with the signal space dimension (product of signaling duration and bandwidth). Sparsity is captured by the number of resolvable paths in delay and Doppler. Our analysis is base…
A detailed understanding of the dynamic processes of vehicular radio channels is crucial for its realistic modeling. In this paper, we present multipath components (MPCs) tracking results from a channel sounder measurement with 1 GHz bandwidth at a carrier frequency of 5.7 GHz. We describe in detail the applied algorithms and perform a tracking performance evaluation based on artificial channels and on measurement data from a tunnel scenario. The tracking performance of the proposed algorithm is comparable to the tracking performance of the state-of-the-art Gaussian mixture probability hypothe…
This paper proposes a novel joint channel estimation and beamforming approach for multicell wideband massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. With the proposed channel estimation and beamforming approach, we determine the number of cells $N_c$ that can utilize the same time and frequency resource while mitigating the effect of pilot contamination. The proposed approach exploits the multipath characteristics of wideband channels. Specifically, when the channel has a maximum of $L$ multipath taps, \textcolor{red}{it is shown that $N_c\leq L$ cells can estimate the channels of their…
Wideband wireless channel is a time dispersive channel and becomes strongly frequency-selective. However, in most cases, the channel is composed of a few dominant taps and a large part of taps is approximately zero or zero. They are often called sparse multi-path channels (MPC). Conventional linear MPC methods, such as the least squares (LS), do not exploit the sparsity of MPC. In general, accurate sparse MPC estimator can be obtained by solving a LASSO problem even in the presence of noise. In this paper, a novel CS-based sparse MPC method by using Dantzig selector (DS) [1] is introduced. Thi…
This paper studies the ergodic capacity of wideband multipath channels with limited feedback. Our work builds on recent results that have established the possibility of significant capacity gains in the wideband/low-SNR regime when there is perfect channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter. Furthermore, the perfect CSI benchmark gain can be obtained with the feedback of just one bit per channel coefficient. However, the input signals used in these methods are peaky, that is, they have a large peak-to-average power ratios. Signal peakiness is related to channel coherence and many recen…
The capacity of discrete-time, noncoherent, multipath fading channels is considered. It is shown that if the variances of the path gains decay faster than exponentially, then capacity is unbounded in the transmit power.
The capacity of discrete-time, non-coherent, multipath fading channels is considered. It is shown that if the delay spread is large in the sense that the variances of the path gains do not decay faster than geometrically, then capacity is bounded in the signal-to-noise ratio.
The study of degrees of freedom of signals observed within spatially diverse broadband multipath fields is an area of ongoing investigation and has a wide range of applications, including characterising broadband MIMO and cooperative networks. However, a fundamental question arises: given a size limitation on the observation region, what is the upper bound on the degrees of freedom of signals observed within a broadband multipath field over a finite time window? In order to address this question, we characterize the multipath field as a sum of a finite number of orthogonal waveforms or spatial…
Wideband communications are impossible with signals that are spread over a very large band and are transmitted over multipath channels unknown ahead of time. This work exploits the I-mmse connection to bound the achievable data-rate of spreading signals in wideband settings, and to conclude that the achievable data-rate diminishes as the bandwidth increases due to channel uncertainty. The result applies to all spreading modulations, i.e. signals that are evenly spread over the bandwidth available to the communication system, with SNR smaller than log(W/L)/(W/L) and holds for communications ove…
Bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) using (bi-)orthogonal signals is especially well suited for the application in impulse-radio ultra-wideband transmission systems, which typically operate in the power-limited regime and require a very low-complexity transmitter and receiver design. In this paper we analyze the capacity of BICM using (bi-)orthogonal signals with coherent and noncoherent detection and put particular focus on the power-limited or wideband regime. We give analytical expressions for the ratio energy per bit vs. noise power spectral density in the limit of infinite bandwidth a…
The research analyzes the problem of capacity analysis of the multi-user massive multi-input multi-output systems with a banded correlation model. The presented study impacts the analytical statistical description with closed form expression of the ergodic sum-rate capacity of the system functioning in presence of multipath fading channel with complex Nakagami-m statistics of the complex transmission coefficients. Numerical verification of the derived expressions was performed and demonstrated excellent correspondence with simulation. The research demonstrated that the system correlation matri…
We consider a multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) wideband Rayleigh block fading channel where the channel state is unknown to both the transmitter and the receiver and there is only an average power constraint on the input. We compute the capacity and analyze its dependence on coherence length, number of antennas and receive signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) per degree of freedom. We establish conditions on the coherence length and number of antennas for the non-coherent channel to have a "near coherent" performance in the wideband regime. We also propose a signaling scheme that is near-capacity…
Training over sparse multipath channels is explored. The energy allocation and the optimal shape of training signals that enable error free communications over unknown channels are characterized as a function of the channels' statistics. The performance of training is evaluated by the reduction of the mean square error of the channel estimate and by the decrease in the uncertainty of the channel. A connection between the entropy of the wideband channel and the required energy for training is shown. In addition, there is a linkage between the sparsity and the entropy of the channel to the numbe…
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is the most promising candidate for wideband data access. This is due to the advantage of soft limit on the number of active mobile devices. Many wireless mesh systems impose an upper bound on the BER performance which restricts the increase in number of mobile users. Capacity is further reduced in Multipath Fading Environment (MFE). This paper presents an effective method of improving the capacity of a CDMA based mesh network by managing the transmitted powers of the mobile devices and using MMSE based Multiuser Detection (MUD). The proposed scheme improve…
This paper studies the capacity of discrete-time multipath fading channels. It is assumed that the number of paths is finite, i.e., that the channel output is influenced by the present and by the L previous channel inputs. A noncoherent channel model is considered where neither transmitter nor receiver are cognizant of the fading's realization, but both are aware of its statistic. The focus is on capacity at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). In particular, the capacity pre-loglog - defined as the limiting ratio of the capacity to loglog SNR as SNR tends to infinity - is studied. It is shown t…
The sparsity of multipaths in the wideband channel has motivated the use of compressed sensing for channel estimation. In this letter, we propose a different approach to sparse channel estimation. We exploit the fact that $L$ taps of channel impulse response in time domain constitute a non-orthogonal superposition of $L$ geometric sequences in frequency domain. This converts the channel estimation problem into the extraction of the parameters of geometric sequences. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme is superior to existing algorithms in high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and large …
This work studies the capacity of multipath fading channels. A noncoherent channel model is considered, where neither the transmitter nor the receiver is cognizant of the realization of the path gains, but both are cognizant of their statistics. It is shown that if the delay spread is large in the sense that the variances of the path gains decay exponentially or slower, then capacity is bounded in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). For such channels, capacity does not tend to infinity as the SNR tends to infinity. In contrast, if the variances of the path gains decay faster than exponentially, t…
We derive bounds on the noncoherent capacity of a very general class of multiple-input multiple-output channels that allow for selectivity in time and frequency as well as for spatial correlation. The bounds apply to peak-constrained inputs; they are explicit in the channel's scattering function, are useful for a large range of bandwidth, and allow to coarsely identify the capacity-optimal combination of bandwidth and number of transmit antennas. Furthermore, we obtain a closed-form expression for the first-order Taylor series expansion of capacity in the limit of infinite bandwidth. From this…
In non-coherent wideband fading channels where energy rather than spectrum is the limiting resource, peaky and non-peaky signaling schemes have long been considered species apart, as the first approaches asymptotically the capacity of a wideband AWGN channel with the same average SNR, whereas the second reaches a peak rate at some finite critical bandwidth and then falls to zero as bandwidth grows to infinity. In this paper it is shown that this distinction is in fact an artifact of the limited attention paid in the past to the product between the bandwidth and the fraction of time it is in us…
Wideband wireless channel is a time dispersive channel and becomes strongly frequency-selective. However, in most cases, the channel is composed of a few dominant taps and a large part of taps is approximately zero or zero. To exploit the sparsity of multi-path channel (MPC), two methods have been proposed. They are, namely, greedy algorithm and convex program. Greedy algorithm is easy to be implemented but not stable; on the other hand, the convex program method is stable but difficult to be implemented as practical channel estimation problems. In this paper, we introduce a novel channel esti…
The scaling of coherent and non-coherent channel capacity is studied in a single-input multiple-output (SIMO) block Rayleigh fading channel as both the bandwidth and the number of receiver antennas go to infinity jointly with the transmit power fixed. The transmitter has no channel state information (CSI), while the receiver may have genie-provided CSI (coherent receiver), or the channel statistics only (non-coherent receiver). Our results show that if the available bandwidth is smaller than a threshold bandwidth which is proportional (up to leading order terms) to the square root of the numbe…
We consider the problem of adaptive modulation for wideband DS-CDMA Rayleigh fading channels with imperfect channel state information (CSI). We assume a multidimensional signal subspace spanned by a collection of random spreading codes (multicoding) and study the effects of both the subspace dimension and the probability distribution of the transmitted symbols on the mutual information between the channel input and output in the presence of uncertainty regarding the true state of the channel. We develop approximations for the mutual information as well as both upper and lower bounds on the mut…
Accurate channel parameter estimation is challenging for wideband millimeter-wave (mmWave) large-scale hybrid arrays, due to beam squint and much fewer radio frequency (RF) chains than antennas. This paper presents a novel joint delay and angle estimation approach for wideband mmWave fully-connected hybrid uniform cylindrical arrays. We first design a new hybrid beamformer to reduce the dimension of received signals on the horizontal plane by exploiting the convergence of the Bessel function, and to reduce the active beams in the vertical direction through preselection. The important recurrenc…
Following recent advances in terahertz (THz) technology, there is a consensus on the crucial role of THz communications in the next generation of wireless systems. Aiming at catalyzing THz communications research, we propose TeraMIMO, an accurate stochastic MATLAB simulator of statistical THz channels. We simulate ultra-massive multiple-input multiple-output antenna configurations as critical infrastructure enablers that overcome the limitation in THz communications distances. We consider both line-of-sight and multipath components and propose frequency- and delay-domain implementations for si…
Wide band systems operating over multipath channels may spread their power over bandwidth if they use duty cycle. Channel uncertainty limits the achievable data rates of power constrained wide band systems; Duty cycle transmission reduces the channel uncertainty because the receiver has to estimate the channel only when transmission takes place. The optimal choice of the fraction of time used for transmission depends on the spectral efficiency of the signal modulation. The general principle is demonstrated by comparing the channel conditions that allow different modulations to achieve the capa…
This paper proposes a novel and simple orthogonal faster than Nyquist (OFTN) data transmission and detection approach for a single input multiple output (SIMO) system. It is assumed that the signal having a bandwidth $B$ is transmitted through a wireless channel with $L$ multipath components. Under this assumption, the current paper provides a novel and simple OFTN transmission and symbol-by-symbol detection approach that exploits the multiplexing gain obtained by the multipath characteristic of wideband wireless channels. It is shown that the proposed design can achieve a higher transmission …
The wideband regime of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) in Gaussian channels is studied. The Taylor expansion of the coded modulation capacity for generic signal constellations at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is derived and used to determine the corresponding expansion for the BICM capacity. Simple formulas for the minimum energy per bit and the wideband slope are given. BICM is found to be suboptimal in the sense that its minimum energy per bit can be larger than the corresponding value for coded modulation schemes. The minimum energy per bit using standard Gray mapping on M-PAM or …
In this paper, a novel two-dimensional (2D) non-stationary wideband geometry-based stochastic model (GBSM) for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems is proposed. Key characteristics of massive MIMO channels such as near field effects and cluster evolution along the array are addressed in this model. Near field effects are modelled by a second-order approximation to spherical wavefronts, i.e., parabolic wavefronts, leading to linear drifts of the angles of multipath components (MPCs) and non-stationarity along the array. Cluster evolution along the array involving …
This paper proposes a novel approach for designing channel estimation, beamforming and scheduling jointly for wideband massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. With the proposed approach, we first quantify the maximum number of user equipments (UEs) that can send pilots which may or may not be orthogonal. Specifically, when the channel has a maximum of $L$ multipath taps, and we allocate $\tilde{M}$ sub-carriers for the channel state information (CSI) estimation, a maximum of $\tilde{M}$ UEs CSI can be estimated ($L$ times compared to the conventional CSI estimation approach) in …
In this letter, we develop a low-complexity transceiver design, referred to as semi-random beam pairing (SRBP), for sparse multipath massive MIMO channels. By exploring a sparse representation of the MIMO channel in the virtual angular domain, we generate a set of transmit-receive beam pairs in a semi-random way to support the simultaneous transmission of multiple data streams. These data streams can be easily separated at the receiver via a successive interference cancelation (SIC) technique, and the power allocation among them are optimized based on the classical waterfilling principle. The …
High time resolution of ultra wideband (UWB) signals facilitates very precise positioning capabilities based on time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements. Although the theoretical lower bound for TOA estimation can be achieved by the maximum likelihood principle, it is impractical due to the need for extremely high-rate sampling and the presence of large number of multipath components. On the other hand, the conventional correlation-based algorithm, which serially searches possible signal delays, takes a very long time to estimate the TOA of a received UWB signal. Moreover, the first signal path does…
In this paper, we apply angle-domain Doppler compensation for high-mobility wideband massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) uplink transmission. The time-varying multipath channel is considered between high-speed terminal and static base station (BS), where multiple Doppler frequency offsets (DFOs) are associated with distinct angle of departures (AoDs). With the aid of the large-scale uniform linear array (ULA) at the transmitter, we design a beamforming network to generate multiple parallel beamforming branches, each transmitting signal pointing to one particular angle. Then, the transmitte…
This paper presents a 3-D statistical channel model of the impulse response with small-scale spatially correlated random coefficients for multi-element transmitter and receiver antenna arrays, derived using the physically-based time cluster - spatial lobe (TCSL) clustering scheme. The small-scale properties of multipath amplitudes are modeled based on 28 GHz outdoor millimeter-wave small-scale local area channel measurements. The wideband channel capacity is evaluated by considering measurement-based Rician-distributed voltage amplitudes, and the spatial autocorrelation of multipath amplitudes…
This paper proposes a closed-loop sparse channel estimation (CE) scheme for wideband millimeter-wave hybrid full-dimensional multiple-input multiple-output and time division duplexing based systems, which exploits the channel sparsity in both angle and delay domains. At the downlink CE stage, random transmit precoder is designed at base station (BS) for channel sounding, and receive combiners at user devices (UDs) are designed to visualize hybrid array as a low-dimensional digital array for facilitating the multi-dimensional unitary ESPRIT (MDU-ESPRIT) algorithm to estimate respective angle-of…
Energy efficiency in fading channels in the presence of Quality of Service (QoS) constraints is studied. Effective capacity, which provides the maximum arrival rate that a wireless channel can sustain while satisfying statistical QoS constraints, is considered. Spectral efficiency--bit energy tradeoff is analyzed in the low-power and wideband regimes by employing the effective capacity formulation, rather than the Shannon capacity. Through this analysis, energy requirements under QoS constraints are identified. The analysis is conducted under two assumptions: perfect channel side information (…
In this work, the uplink channel estimation problem is considered for a millimeter wave (mmWave) multi-input multi-output (MIMO) system. It is well known that pilot overhead and computation complexity in estimating the channel increases with the number of antennas and the bandwidth. To overcome this, the proposed approach allows the channel estimation at the base station to be aided by the sensing information. The sensing information contains an estimate of scatterers locations in an environment. A simultaneous weighting orthogonal matching pursuit (SWOMP) - sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) algo…
Energy efficiency of fixed-rate transmissions is studied in the presence of queueing constraints and channel uncertainty. It is assumed that neither the transmitter nor the receiver has channel side information prior to transmission. The channel coefficients are estimated at the receiver via minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) estimation with the aid of training symbols. It is further assumed that the system operates under statistical queueing constraints in the form of limitations on buffer violation probabilities. The optimal fraction of power allocated to training is identified. Spectral effic…
This paper presents a millimeter-wave (mmWave) wideband sliding correlator channel sounder with flexibility to operate at various transmission rates. The channel sounder can transmit and receive up to 1 GHz of RF null-to-null bandwidth while measuring a 2 nanosecond multipath time resolution. The system architecture takes advantage of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), high-speed digital-to-analog converters (DACs), and low phase noise Rubidium (Rb) references for synchronization. Using steerable narrowbeam antennas, the system can measure up to 185 dB of path loss. The channel sounder is…
M-ary On-Off Frequency-Shift-Keying (OOFSK) is a digital modulation format in which M-ary FSK signaling is overlaid on On/Off keying. This paper investigates the potential of this modulation format in the context of wideband fading channels. First it is assumed that the receiver uses energy detection for the reception of OOFSK signals. Capacity expressions are obtained for the cases in which the receiver has perfect and imperfect fading side information. Power efficiency is investigated when the transmitter is subject to a peak-to-average power ratio (PAR) limitation or a peak power limitation…
In the wideband regime, the performance of many of the popular modulation schemes such as code division multiple access and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing falls quickly without channel state information. Obtaining the amount of channel information required for these techniques to work is costly and difficult, which suggests the need for schemes which can perform well without channel state information. In this work, we present one such scheme, called wideband time frequency coding, which achieves rates on the order of the additive white Gaussian noise capacity without requiring any …
Thanks to the strong ability against the inter-cell interference, cell-free network has been considered as a promising technique to improve the network capacity of future wireless systems. However, for further capacity enhancement, it requires to deploy more base stations (BSs) with high cost and power consumption. To address the issue, inspired by the recently proposed technique called reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), we propose the concept of RIS-aided cell-free network to improve the network capacity with low cost and power consumption. Then, for the proposed RIS-aided cell-free ne…
Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) stand for a significant part of the total power consumption in a massive MIMO base station. One-bit ADCs are one way to reduce power consumption. This paper presents an analysis of the spectral efficiency of single-carrier and OFDM transmission in massive MIMO systems that use one-bit ADCs. A closed-form achievable rate, i.e., a lower bound on capacity, is derived for a wideband system with a large number of channel taps that employs low-complexity linear channel estimation and symbol detection. Quantization results in two types of error in the symbol detect…
This paper focuses on delivering quantified results for the evaluation of the aggregated impact of stochastic antenna misalignment, multipath fading and hardware imperfections on the terahertz (THz) wireless fiber extenders. In this line, we present the appropriate signal model that accommodates the different technical and environmental parameters. In particular, it takes into consideration the antenna gains, the central frequency, the transmission range, the environmental conditions, i.e. temperature, humidity and pressure, the spatial jitter between the transmitter and receiver antennas, whi…
The ergodic capacity of underlay cognitive (secondary) dual-hop relaying systems is analytically investigated. Specifically, the amplify-and-forward transmission protocol is considered, while the received signals undergo multipath fading and shadowing with non-identical statistics. To efficiently describe this composite type of fading, the well-known generalized-$K$ fading model is used. New analytical expressions and quite accurate closed-form approximations regarding the ergodic capacity of the end-to-end communication are obtained, in terms of finite sum series of the Meijer's-$G$ function.…
In this paper, an efficient beam and channel acquisition scheme together with joint angle-delay power profile (JADPP) construction are proposed for single-carrier mm-wave wideband sparse massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channels when hybrid beamforming architecture is utilized. We consider two different modes of operation, namely slow-time beam acquisition and fast-time instantaneous channel estimation, for training stage of time division duplex based systems. In the first mode, where pre-structured hybrid beams are formed to scan intended angular sectors, the joint angle-delay sp…
The problem of excessive pilot overhead required for uplink massive MIMO channel estimation is well known, let alone when it is considered along with wideband (OFDM) transmissions. Towards channel estimators that are both efficient and require low-training overhead, compressive sensing (CS) approaches have been increasingly popular, exploiting the sparse nature of the physical channel. However, no analytical insights regarding the overhead required for reliable channel estimation in wideband massive MIMO are available. By observing that the wideband massive MIMO channel can be represented by a…
Franceschetti et al. have recently shown that per-node throughput in an extended, ad hoc wireless network with $Θ(n)$ randomly distributed nodes and multihop routing can be increased from the $Ω({1 \over \sqrt{n} \log n})$ scaling demonstrated in the seminal paper of Gupta and Kumar to $Ω({1 \over \sqrt{n}})$. The goal of the present paper is to understand the dependence of this interesting result on the principal new features it introduced relative to Gupta-Kumar: (1) a capacity-based formula for link transmission bit-rates in terms of received signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR); (…
This paper describes an implementation of spatial consistency in the NYUSIM channel simulation platform. NYUSIM is a millimeter wave (mmWave) channel simulator that realizes measurement-based channel models based on a wide range of multipath channel parameters, including realistic multipath time delays and multipath components that arrive at different 3-D angles in space, and generates life-like samples of channel impulse responses (CIRs) that statistically match those measured in the real world. To properly simulate channel impairments and variations for adaptive antenna algorithms or channel…
This paper investigates generation of a secret key from a reciprocal wireless channel. In particular we consider wireless channels that exhibit sparse structure in the wideband regime and the impact of the sparsity on the secret key capacity. We explore this problem in two steps. First, we study key generation from a state-dependent discrete memoryless multiple source. The state of source captures the effect of channel sparsity. Secondly, we consider a wireless channel model that captures channel sparsity and correlation between the legitimate users' channel and the eavesdropper's channel. Suc…
Thanks to the strong ability against the inter-cell interference, cell-free network is considered as a promising technique to improve network capacity. However, further capacity improvement requires to deploy more base stations (BSs) with high cost and power consumption. To address this issue, inspired by the recently developed reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) technique, we propose the concept of RIS-aided cell-free network to improve the capacity with low cost and power consumption. The key idea is to replace some of the required BSs by low-cost and energy-efficient RISs. Then, in a w…