Resource Allocation for Power Minimization in the Downlink of THP-based Spatial Multiplexing MIMO-OFDMA Systems

In this work, we deal with resource allocation in the downlink of spatial multiplexing MIMO-OFDMA systems. In particular, we concentrate on the problem of jointly optimizing the transmit and receive processing matrices, the channel assignment and the power allocation with the objective of minimizing the total power consumption while satisfying different quality-of-service requirements. A layered architecture is used in which users are first partitioned in different groups on the basis of their channel quality and then channel assignment and transceiver design are sequentially addressed starting from the group of users with most adverse channel conditions. The multi-user interference among users belonging to different groups is removed at the base station using a Tomlinson-Harashima pre-coder operating at user level. Numerical results are used to highlight the effectiveness of the proposed solution and to make comparisons with existing alternatives.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, IEEE Trans. Veh. Techno

AirSync: Enabling Distributed Multiuser MIMO with Full Spatial Multiplexing

The enormous success of advanced wireless devices is pushing the demand for higher wireless data rates. Denser spectrum reuse through the deployment of more access points per square mile has the potential to successfully meet the increasing demand for more bandwidth. In theory, the best approach to density increase is via distributed multiuser MIMO, where several access points are connected to a central server and operate as a large distributed multi-antenna access point, ensuring that all transmitted signal power serves the purpose of data transmission, rather than creating "interference." In practice, while enterprise networks offer a natural setup in which distributed MIMO might be possible, there are serious implementation difficulties, the primary one being the need to eliminate phase and timing offsets between the jointly coordinated access points. In this paper we propose AirSync, a novel scheme which provides not only time but also phase synchronization, thus enabling distributed MIMO with full spatial multiplexing gains. AirSync locks the phase of all access points using a common reference broadcasted over the air in conjunction with a Kalman filter which closely tracks the phase drift. We have implemented AirSync as a digital circuit in the FPGA of the WARP radio platform. Our experimental testbed, comprised of two access points and two clients, shows that AirSync is able to achieve phase synchronization within a few degrees, and allows the system to nearly achieve the theoretical optimal multiplexing gain. We also discuss MAC and higher layer aspects of a practical deployment. To the best of our knowledge, AirSync offers the first ever realization of the full multiuser MIMO gain, namely the ability to increase the number of wireless clients linearly with the number of jointly coordinated access points, without reducing the per client rate.Comment: Submitted to Transactions on Networkin