Optimal Power Control in Decentralized Gaussian Multiple Access Channels

We consider the decentralized power optimization problem for Gaussian fast-fading multiple access channel (MAC) so that the average sum-throughput is maximized. In our MAC setup, each transmitter has access to only its own fading coefficient or channel state information (CSI) while the receiver has full CSI available at all instants. Unlike centralized MAC (full CSIT MAC) where the optimal powers are known explicitly, the analytical solution for optimal decentralized powers does not seem feasible. In this letter, we specialize alternating-maximization (AM) method for numerically computing the optimal powers and ergodic capacity of the decentralized MAC for general fading statistics and average power constraints. For illustration, we apply our AM method to compute the capacity of MAC channels with fading distributions such as Rayleigh, Rician etc.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication to IEEE Communication letter

Downlink SDMA with Limited Feedback in Interference-Limited Wireless Networks

The tremendous capacity gains promised by space division multiple access (SDMA) depend critically on the accuracy of the transmit channel state information. In the broadcast channel, even without any network interference, it is known that such gains collapse due to interstream interference if the feedback is delayed or low rate. In this paper, we investigate SDMA in the presence of interference from many other simultaneously active transmitters distributed randomly over the network. In particular we consider zero-forcing beamforming in a decentralized (ad hoc) network where each receiver provides feedback to its respective transmitter. We derive closed-form expressions for the outage probability, network throughput, transmission capacity, and average achievable rate and go on to quantify the degradation in network performance due to residual self-interference as a function of key system parameters. One particular finding is that as in the classical broadcast channel, the per-user feedback rate must increase linearly with the number of transmit antennas and SINR (in dB) for the full multiplexing gains to be preserved with limited feedback. We derive the throughput-maximizing number of streams, establishing that single-stream transmission is optimal in most practically relevant settings. In short, SDMA does not appear to be a prudent design choice for interference-limited wireless networks.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communication