Uplink Sum Throughput Analysis and Maximization for Integrated Satellite-Terrestrial Cell-Free Massive MIMO

This paper studies multiple-access scenarios where
users are cooperatively served by the satellite and terrestrial
access points (APs). We derive the uplink ergodic throughput
of scheduled users under practical conditions where maximumradio
combining is exploited locally at the ground gateway and
the APs. The analytical result explicitly unveils the effects of pilot
contamination and channel conditions on the achievable throughput
of each scheduled user in the uplink data transmission. The
system can explicitly define the scheduled users and perform
the power allocation by maximizing the sum throughput using
either model-based or learning-based approaches. Numerical
results demonstrate that the cooperation between space and
ground systems brings superior throughput improvements over
either space or ground networks. Even though most users can
be simultaneously served, some may not be scheduled in each
coherence interval due to limited radio resources.