article · IEEE Wireless Communications Letters
cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) is a promising technology for uniform high spectral efficiency (SE), enabled by distributed access points (AP) jointly serving user equipments (UE) over wide areas. However, practical deployment faces two key challenges: AP–UE association under AP capacity limits and efficient pilot assignment with limited orthogonal pilots. We propose an iterative, preference-aware association algorithm (coverage-aware preference-based association (CAPA)) that balances AP loads while respecting both UE and AP preferences, ensuring reliable service for all UEs. In parallel, we design a pilot assignment scheme (conflict pilot assignment (LCPA)) that minimizes pilot reuse within each AP set, falling back on the least-used pilot only when necessary. Simulations show that our approach outperforms existing benchmarks, boosting the 95%-likely spectral efficiency by up to 46% and the sum SE by 2–8%. These results highlight the proposed framework’s ability to trade off coverage and throughput, making it well-suited for dense (CF-mMIMO) deployments
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DOI: 10.1109/lwc.2025.3647585
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