Localization in Multi-Panel Massive MIMO With Clock Asynchronism: A Unified Approach

2026-10-08

AI Summary

This study addresses the localization challenge in multi-panel massive MIMO systems under asynchronous clock conditions by proposing UNILocMP, a unified positioning framework. By integrating geometric modeling with channel charting techniques, the framework performs joint estimation of position and clock offset for multi-line-of-sight (multi-LoS) users while employing an unsupervised learning strategy for single-LoS users. Furthermore, it introduces a two-stage data augmentation scheme alongside a clock-offset-aware similarity metric. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly outperforms existing baselines, achieving localization accuracy comparable to fully supervised fingerprinting approaches. Consequently, UNILocMP effectively enhances positioning robustness in complex propagation scenarios.

Abstract

In this work, we propose a unified localization framework, termed UNILocMP, that combines model-based geometry and channel charting (CC) for multi-panel massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) under clock asynchronism. Owing to the multi-panel architecture, users are classified into multi-line-of-sight (LoS) users, which maintain LoS links with at least two panels, and single/non-LoS users, which maintain a LoS link with only one panel or with none of the panels. For multi-LoS users, a joint position and clock bias estimation is developed; while for single/non-LoS users, an unsupervised CC model is trained with a two-stage data augmentation strategy, where a clock-bias aware dissimilarity metric is introduced. It is numerically validated that the proposed UNILocMP outperforms model-based and CC-based baselines and achieves acceptable performance compared with fully-supervised fingerprinting. Moreover, for a fixed total number of antennas, the multi-panel architecture significantly improves localization accuracy and robustness compared with a single-panel base station (BS) deployment, particularly in the presence of clock asynchronism.

Problem

• Multi-Panel Massive MIMO
• Localization
• Clock Asynchronism
• Channel Charting

Innovation

• Multi-Panel Massive MIMO
• Clock Asynchronism
• Channel Charting
• Unified Localization Framework
• Unsupervised Learning