Low-complexity antenna selection and discrete phase-shifts design in IRS-assisted multiuser massive MIMO networks

We propose two novel antenna selection (AS) and discrete phase-shifts design (PSD) schemes for use in intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) assisted multiuser massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) networks. The first AS and PSD method aims at maximizing the gain of the channels; while the second method is an iterative sum-rate maximization (ISM) scheme that aims at maximizing the total achievable rate. For the AS part, we demonstrate that the ISM method achieves near optimal performance with much lower complexity compared to benchmark AS schemes, and can be utilized with any precoder at the mMIMO base station. For the PSD, our proposed successive?refinement optimization methods are not only efficient, but their complexities scale linearly with the number of elements at the IRS, making them highly attractive when dealing with large surfaces. A thorough complexity analysis for the proposed methods is carried out in terms of the number of floating point operations required for their implementations. Finally, extensive numerical results are provided and some key points are highlighted on the performance of the proposed schemes with both conjugate beamforming and zero-forcing precoders.