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fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LCOMM.2019.2958694, IEEE
Communications Letters
1

Alternating Optimization Based Low Complexity

Hybrid Precoding in Millimeter Wave MIMO
Systems
Wenjing Huang, Qintuya Si and Minglu Jin

Abstract—Hybrid precoding is an effective solution to reduce

the cost of millimeter wave systems. In recent years, joint RF
H RF
Chain Chain
optimization has begun to attract the attention of researchers
due to its excellent performance. In this paper, we adopt the Baseband
t
Analog Analog Baseband
Ns Precoder NRF Precoder Nt Nr Combiner NrRF Combiner Ns
alternating optimization method to design a low complexity FBB FRF WRF WBB

hybrid precoding. In particular, the spectral efficiency opti- RF RF

mization problems are simplified to sub-optimization problems Chain Chain

under certain constraints. For each sub-optimization problem,

we alternatively optimize the columns of the analog precoding
matrix and combining matrix by using the projected gradient
method. Then, the digital domain matrices are derived from the
equivalent channel. Simulation results and complexity analyses
show that the performance of the proposed hybrid precoding
based on alternating optimization is close to the unconstrained
optimal precoder and the algorithm has lower complexity.
Index Terms—mmWave, hybrid precoding, alternating opti-
mization, projected gradient method.
I. I NTRODUCTION
G networks drive the development of future communica-
5 tions and address the limitations of previous generation
communications [1]. Millimeter wave (mmWave) and massive
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) in 5G have attracted
more attentions. MmWave has shorter wavelength and smaller
antenna size in its frequency band, which makes massive
antenna arrays encapsulated into smaller physical size at
the base station. Large-scale antenna arrays in MIMO can
compensate the path loss induced by the high frequency of
mmWave. Hence, the combination of mmWave and massive
MIMO is necessary, which becomes the key technology of 5G.
For classical MIMO systems, the transmitted signal is pre-
coded at baseband by digital precoders to reduce interference
between data streams. In the fully digital precoding scheme,
each antenna is equipped with a corresponding radio frequency
(RF) chain. Because of the massive transmit antennas, high
hardware and power cost, the fully digital precoding scheme
is no longer suitable for mmWave MIMO systems. Then,
the hybrid precoding scheme appears, which reduces the RF
chains and has a slight loss in performance.
Until now, some hybrid precoding schemes have emerged
in mmWave MIMO systems. Inspired by orthogonal matching
pursuit (OMP), a hybrid precoding scheme using the sparse
characteristics of the mmWave MIMO channel was proposed
in [2]. In view of successive interference cancellation (SIC),
The authors are with the School of Information and Communication
Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China (e-mail:
mljin@dlut.edu.cn).
Fig. 1. System model of the hybrid structure in mmWave MIMO.
the authors in [3] proposed a hybrid precoding scheme which
assumed that the digital precoding matrix was a diagonal
matrix. In [4], the authors adopted the alternating minimiza-
tion method, and the optimization problem was designed to
matrix factorization. Following ideas from the frame design
and dictionary learning literature, [5] presented an alternating
optimization procedure to solve the optimization problem.
Based on the idea of alternating optimization and SIC, the
authors in [6] used the coordinate descent method to obtain
the precoding matrix.
In this paper, we present a low complexity hybrid precoding
scheme which makes use of alternating optimization. Using the
optimization method of SIC [3], we simplify the expression
of spectral efficiency, and derive a new optimization problem
that is composed of the sum of sub-rates. In each sub-
optimization problem, the columns of the analog precoding
matrix and the columns of the analog combining matrix are
alternately optimized, in which the projection gradient method
is used. After optimizing the analog domain matrices, we get
the equivalent channel that is used to derive digital domain
matrices. Simulation results and complexity analyses show
that the proposed algorithm has lower complexity than other
algorithms with the similar performance.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
The classic architecture of a single-user mmWave MIMO
system is displayed in Fig. 1. The base station has Nt antennas,
and the receiver has Nr antennas. The RF chains of the
t
transmitter are NRF . The RF chains of the receiver are
r
NRF . The number of transmitted data streams is Ns . And
Ns ≤ NRF t
≤ Nt , Ns ≤ NRF r
≤ Nr , NRF t
= NRFr
=NRF
should be satisfied.
After the process of decoding, the signal of the receiver can
be written as
√ H H H H
y = ρWBB WRF HFRF FBB s + WBB WRF n, (1)

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Communications Letters
2

where s represents the Ns ×1 signal, which satisfies E(ssH ) = strained precoder are derived from the right singular vectors
Ns−1 IN s . FBB is the NRF t
× Ns digital precoder. FRF is (RSVs) of the channel, they are mutually orthogonal, which
the Nt × NRF analog precoder, and its entries have the
t
eliminates the interference between data streams. Inspired by
same amplitude. The power constraint of the transmitter is this, we focus on the columns of FBB and WBB to be mutu-
2
∥FRF FBB ∥F = Ns . WBB is the NRF r
×Ns digital combining ally orthogonal, i.e., FH H
BB FBB = INs and WBB WBB = INs .
matrix. WRF is the Nr × NRF analog combining matrix, and
r
Although there is no definitive conclusion about the optimal
its entries have the same amplitude. H represents the channel structure of the digital precoder in hybrid precoding, it is
matrix. ρ represents the average power ( of receiver.
) n represents natural and attractive to design the digital precoder under
the noise vector satisfying i.i.d CN 0, σn2 . the orthogonal constraints. Morever, orthogonal constraints
MmWave has severe path loss resulting in limited spatial separate FRF and FBB , which simplifies the design process.
selectivity. The clustered channel model [2], [7] can well In addition, it has been shown in [8] that the analog
reflect the characteristics of mmWave channels. The channel precoding matrix (analog combining matrix) is approximate-
is specifically described as ly orthogonal in mmWave massive MIMO systems, i.e.,
√ FHRF FRF ≈ Nt INRF and WRF WRF ≈ Nr INRF . When the
H
Nt Nr ∑ ∑
Ncl N ray
( ) ( t t )H
H= αi,j ar ϕrij , θij
r
at ϕij , θij , above conditions are satisfied, the noise covariance matrix Rn
Ncl Nray i=1 j=1 in (4) can approximate to σn2 Nr INs .
(2) Let F = FRF FBB and W = WRF WBB , (4) can be rewrit-
where Ncl is the number of scattering clusters, Nray is the ten as
number of transmission path in each scattering cluster. αi,j (a) ρ
is the gain, and its index represents the ith cluster and the R ≈ log2 (| WH HFFH HH W|)
Ns Nr σn2
jth ray in cluster. ϕr (θr ) and ϕt (θt ) are azimuth (elevation) (b) ρ
angles of arrival and departure. ar (·) and at (·) denote receiver ≈ Ns log2 ( ) + log2 (|WRFH
RF H WRF |)
HFRF FH H
Ns Nr σn2
and transmitter array response vectors, respectively. When √ the ρ
transmitting antennas use uniform planar array with N × = Ns log2 ( ) + 2 × log2 (|WRF
H
HFRF |), (5)
√ Ns Nr σn2
N , the forms of a (ϕij , θij ) is
where (a) holds under the condition of high signal to noise ra-
1 [ 2π
a (ϕ, θ) = √ 1, ..., ej λ d(p sin(ϕ) sin(θ)+q cos(θ)) , ..., tio (SNR). Although the SNR of each antenna in the mmWave
N system is low, the approximation of (a) is also correct because
√ √ ]T
ej λ d(( N −1) sin(ϕ) sin(θ)+( N −1) cos(θ)) , (3)
2π the combined SNR is high enough [9]. (b) holds because of the
orthogonality. When Ns =NRF , the orthogonal property makes
FBB FH BB =INs and WBB WBB =INs . When Ns ̸= NRF , (b)
H
where d is the antenna distance and λ is the wavelength
of transmitted signal. p and q are the antenna elements is also effective, and the proof is given in Appendix.
corresponding
√ to the row
√ and the column of 2D plane. Inspired by SIC [3], we continuously optimize the columns
0 ≤ p < N , 0 ≤ q < N should be satisfied. of FRF and WRF . We split the RF precoding matrix as FRF =
The attainable spectral efficiency can be expressed as [FN −1 , fN ], where N =NRF . FN −1 is the first N − 1 columns
ρ −1 H H of FRF , and fN is the N th column of FRF . Similarly, the same
R = log2 (|INs + R WBB WRF HFRF FBB
Ns n split is performed on WRF . Then, the second item in (5) can
×FH BB FRF H WRF WBB |),
H H
(4) be reduced to
( H
)
where Rn = σn2 WBB H H
WRF WRF WBB is the processed noise log2 WRF HFRF
covariance matrix. Both WRF and FRF are implemented by (a) ( )
≈ log2 αINRF + WRF H
HFRF
analog phase shifters.
= NRF log2 (α) + log2 ( INRF + α−1 WRF
H
HFRF ), (6)
III. H YBRID P RECODING A LGORITHM
where (a) is established because we add smaller α to make
A. Alternating Optimization Based Algorithm sure the approximate expression is true. Since the first item is
In order to maximize spectral efficiency, we need to fixed, the second item of (6) can be rewritten as
opt opt
find optimal WBB , WRF , Fopt opt
BB , FRF . However, (4) is diffi- log2 ( INRF + α−1 WRF
H
HFRF )
cult to solve because of the existence of non-convex con-
(b) ( −1 H
)
straints. Additionally, the joint optimization of four matrices = log2 INr + α HFRF WRF
opt opt
(WBB , WRF , Fopt opt
RF , FBB ) is also difficult. For the purpose = log2 (|INr + α−1 H[FN −1 , fN ][WN −1 , wN ]H |)
of solving it, we propose an algorithm which alternately opti- ( )
mizes the columns of FRF and WRF by applying the projected = log2 INr +α−1 HFN −1 WN H
−1 + α
−1
HfN wN H

(c) ( )
gradient method. After optimizing the analog domain matrices = log2 (|TN −1 |) + log2 INr +α−1 T−1N −1 HfN wN
H
and getting the equivalent channel, i.e., He = WRF H
HFRF , ( H −1
)
we obtain FBB and WBB from He . = log2 (|TN −1 |) + log2 1+α−1 wN TN −1 HfN
(d) NRF ( )
First, we focus on the optimization of analog domain. It has = Σ log2 1+α−1 wnH T−1 n−1 Hfn , (7)
been mentioned in [4] that if the columns of optimal uncon- n=1

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LCOMM.2019.2958694, IEEE
Communications Letters
3

where (b) follows from |I+XY| = |I + YX|. In (c), we from the calculation of G in step 3.
define TN −1 = INr +α−1 HFN −1 WN H
−1 . In (d), T0 = INr 2) The complexity of step 4, 6 is low because only the oper-
−1 H
and Tn−1 =INr +α HFn−1 Wn−1 . ations of the columns are involved, which is O(2kNs Nt Nr ).
We notice that the last line of (7) is consist of the summation 3) The third major complexity comes from the calculation of
of several sub-rates which involve single column of WRF and T, which is O(kNt Nr Ns 2 /2).
FRF . In the analog matrix, each entry of the analog precoder 4) The complexity of the last part originates from obtaining
has the constant amplitude due to the phase shifter. In this the equivalent channel and its SVD, which are O(Nr Nt Ns +
case, as can be seen from the last line of (7), if the first n − 1 Nt Ns2 + 2Ns3 ).
columns have been optimized, the optimization problem of the Therefore, the main complexity of our proposed algorithm
nth column can be given by is O(kNt Nr2 Ns + kNt Nr Ns 2 /2). In order to compare the
max wnH Gfn , (8) complexity, we give the complexity of some alternating op-
fn ∈F ,wn ∈W timization algorithms. The main complexities of PE-AltMin
where G = T−1 [4] and HD-AM [5] is both O(Nr Nt2 + 2kNt Ns 2 ), which
n−1 H, F and W are the sets of all feasible vec-
tors, where each entry of vector has the same amplitude. The originates from the SVD of channels, SVD in the loop and
projected gradient method can be used to get the maximum the least squares method. Since CDM [6] has two layers
value of constrained optimization problems. For the alternating of loops, we assume that the number of outer loop is t
optimization process, we fix fn to obtain the gradient of the and inner loop is k. Therefore, the main complexity of
objective function and the gradient is Gfn . Then we fix wn to CDM is O(t[k(3Ns3 Nt +Nt 2 Ns 2 ) + 2Nt Nr Ns ]). In single-
obtain the gradient of the objective function and its gradient is user massive MIMO system, the number of Nt is more than
GH wn . For convenience of calculations, the step size is set as that of Nr and Ns [3]. To highlight Nt , the complexity of
1. Since wn and fn have constant amplitude constraints, they each algorithm is summarized in Table I. It can be observed
need to be taken the phases after optimizing. that the proposed algorithm has lower complexity because
It can be found that the initial values of the analog do- it has a linear relationship with the number of transmitting
main matrices have little effect on performance. Hence we antennas. When the number of transmitting antennas increases,
randomly generate initial values, which significantly reduces the proposed algorithm has obvious advantages.
the complexity and has less losses of performance. The steps TABLE I
of the alternating optimization hybrid precoding are shown in COMPLEXITY ANALYSIS
Algorithm 1, where angle(·) denotes the phase vector of the
analog domain matrix column. Algorithm Main Complexity
Proposed Algorithm O(kNt Nr Ns (Nr + Ns /2)
Algorithm 1 Alternating Optimization Based Hybrid CDM O(ktNt 2 Ns 2 )
Precoding PE-AltMin O(Nr Nt2 )
(0)
Input: T0 , K, FRF , WRF
(0) HD-AM O(Nr Nt2 )
Output: WBB , WRF , FBB , FRF
Initialization: Randomly generate complex matrices IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
(0) (0)
and assign them to WRF and FRF .
1. repeat A. Spectral Efficiency Analysis
2. for n = 1 : NRF Simulation results of different hybrid precoding algorithms
3. G = T−1 n−1 H;
are given in this section. In the channel model, the specific
b(k) parameter values are Nt =256, Nr =16, Ncl =5, Nray =10.
4. fn = fn (k−1) + GH wn (k) ;
b(k) According to the Laplacian distribution, the angles of azimuth
5. fn (k) =ej×angle(fn ) ; and elevation belonging to the departure and arrival can be
(k)
6. wb n = wn (k−1) + Gfn (k) ; obtained. The average angles of them are in [0,2π], which
bn
obey the uniform distribution. The angular spread is 10◦ .
(k)
7. wn (k) =ej×angle(w )
;
−1
8. Tn =INr +α HFn WnH ; Fig. 2 simulates the spectral efficiency of different algo-
9. end for rithms, where NRF = Ns = 4. It can be observed that the
10. until the stopping criterion triggers; performance of the proposed algorithm has similar perfor-
11. Perform SVD on He and derive FBB , WBB from mance with other algorithms. HD-AM [5] achieves the good
the right singular vectors and left singular vectors, performance under the constraint of NRF = Ns .
respectively; √ In order to better illustrate the complexity, we simulate
12. Normalize FBB = ∥FRF FNBB s
∥ FBB . spectral efficiency as a function of the number of iterations. As
F
can be shown from Fig. 3, the proposed algorithm converges
B. Complexity Analysis after five or six iterations.
We assume NRF = Ns for convenience of calculations B. Quantitative Analysis
and k represents the number of loops. The complexity of our The resolution of the phase shifter is limited in the practical
algorithm is mainly composed of four parts. environment, and thus we simulate the performance under
1) The first major complexity is O(kNt Nr2 Ns ), which comes the B=2-bit quantization. It can be seen from Fig. 4 that

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This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/LCOMM.2019.2958694, IEEE
Communications Letters
4

the proposed algorithm can still achieve similar performance A PPENDIX

with other algorithms under quantization. Additionally, HD-
AM algorithm is not applicable in the case of Ns ̸= NRF . If FBB and WBB are derived from the Ve and Ue of the
equivalent channel, i.e., He = Ue Σe VeH , (4) can be reduced
45
Optimal Precoder to
40 Proposed Algorithm

35
HD−AM [5] R ≈ log2 (|WBB H
WRFH
HFRF FBB FH BB FRF H WRF WBB |)
H H
PE−AltMin [4]
ρ
Spectral Efficiency (bits/s/Hz)

CDM [6]
30 OMP [2] + Ns log2 ( )
Ns Nr σn2
25
ρ
20 = Ns log2 ( )+log2 (|Σ|)
Ns Nr σn2
15
ρ Ns
10 = Ns log2 ( 2
)+log2 ( Π λ2i ), (9)
Ns Nr σn i=1
5
where Σ is a diagonal matrix, which is consist of the first
0
−30 −25 −20 −15 −10 −5 0 5 10 Ns diagonal elements of Σe ΣH e . λi is the ith eigenvalue of
SNR (dB)
Σe . MmWave channel has sparse nature, which makes the
Fig. 2. Spectral efficiency of different algorithms (NRF = Ns = 4). equivalent channel sparse [6]. After the equivalent channel
44
is decomposed by SVD, the sum of squares of the first few
eigenvalues is approximately equal to the sum of squares of
43
Optimal Precoder all eigenvalues. Therefore, we can get
Spectral Efficiency (bits/s/Hz)

Proposed Algorithm
42 ρ NRF
R ≈ Ns log2 ( )+log2 ( Π λ2i )
41
Ns Nr σn2 i=1
ρ
RF H WRF |)
H
= Ns log2 ( )+log2 (|WRF HFRF FH H
40
Ns Nr σn2
ρ
39
= Ns log2 ( ) + 2 × log2 (|WRFH
HFRF |), (10)
Ns Nr σn2
38
It can be observed that the approximation results of (10)
37
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and (5) are consistent, that is, when Ns ̸= NRF , this
Number of iterations
approximation is also satisfied.
Fig. 3. Spectral efficiency of the proposed algorithm with increasing iterations
(SNR=10dB, NRF = Ns = 4). R EFERENCES
35
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