In this paper, we consider a generalized sub-array-connected (GSAC) architecture for arbitrary radio frequency (RF) chain and antenna configurations, where the number of RF chains connected to a sub-array and the number of antennas in each sub-array can be arbitrary. Our design objective is to improve the energy-efficiency of the hybrid precoder of millimeter-wave massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. We firstly propose a successive interference cancellation based hybrid precoding algorithm to maximize the achievable rate for any given RF chain and antenna configuration. This algorithm firstly decomposes the total achievable rate optimization problem into multiple sub-rate optimization problems, then it successively maximizes these sub-rates. Since the number of RF chains is limited, we can afford using an exhaustive search scheme to evaluate all configurations and identify the one having the best energy efficiency. Moreover, to rely on an attractive limited feedback, we also propose a beamsteering codebook for our hybrid precoding aided GSAC architecture. Our simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves a similar rate as the corresponding optimal unconstrained precoder. Furthermore, we show that the energy-efficiency of the proposed scheme is better than that of the existing schemes in the fully-connected and sub-array-connected architectures.

10 pages, 10 figures, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, accepted