Uplink Achievable Rate for Massive MIMO with Low-Resolution ADC

In this letter, we derive an approximate analytical expression for the uplink achievable rate of a massive multi-input multi-output (MIMO) antenna system when finite precision analog-digital converters (ADCs) and the common maximal ratio combining technique are used at the receivers. To obtain this expression, we treat quantization noise as an additive quantization noise model. Considering the obtained expression, we show that low-resolution ADCs lead to a decrease in the achievable rate but the performance loss can be compensated by increasing the number of receiving antennas. In addition, we investigate the relation between the number of antennas and the ADC resolution, as well as the power-scaling law. These discussions support the feasibility of equipping highly economical ADCs with low resolution in practical massive MIMO systems.