On Performance of Massive MIMO Systems with Solid-state Amplifiers

This paper analyzes the impact of analog front-end nonlinearities on the bit-error rate (BER) performance of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, mainly focusing on the power amplifiers (PAs) nonlinearities of the solid-state am- plifier. Simulation results show that the PA nonlinearities degrade system BER, yielding SNR losses of approximately 2.3 dB to 5.1 dB depending on the number of user equipment, modulation order, and precoding or decoding schemes employed. The findings confirm the necessity of nonlinear compensation to guarantee the viability of massive MIMO in practical applications.