Outage Efficient Strategies for Network MIMO with Partial CSIT

We consider a multi-cell MIMO downlink (network MIMO) where $B$ base-stations (BS) with $M$ antennas connected to a central station (CS) serve $K$ single-antenna user terminals (UT). Although many works have shown the potential benefits of network MIMO, the conclusion critically depends on the underlying assumptions such as channel state information at transmitters (CSIT) and backhaul links. In this paper, by focusing on the impact of partial CSIT, we propose an outage-efficient strategy. Namely, with side information of all UT's messages and local CSIT, each BS applies zero-forcing (ZF) beamforming in a distributed manner. For a small number of UTs ($K\leq M$), the ZF beamforming creates $K$ parallel MISO channels. Based on the statistical knowledge of these parallel channels, the CS performs a robust power allocation that simultaneously minimizes the outage probability of all UTs and achieves a diversity gain of $B(M-K+1)$ per UT. With a large number of UTs ($K \geq M$), we propose a so-called distributed diversity scheduling (DDS) scheme to select a subset of \Ks UTs with limited backhaul communication. It is proved that DDS achieves a diversity gain of B\frac{K}{\Ks}(M-\Ks+1), which scales optimally with the number of cooperative BSs $B$ as well as UTs. Numerical results confirm that even under realistic assumptions such as partial CSIT and limited backhaul communications, network MIMO can offer high data rates with a sufficient reliability to individual UTs.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figures, submitted to IEEE Trans. on Signal Processin

Joint Scheduling and ARQ for MU-MIMO Downlink in the Presence of Inter-Cell Interference

User scheduling and multiuser multi-antenna (MU-MIMO) transmission are at the core of high rate data-oriented downlink schemes of the next-generation of cellular systems (e.g., LTE-Advanced). Scheduling selects groups of users according to their channels vector directions and SINR levels. However, when scheduling is applied independently in each cell, the inter-cell interference (ICI) power at each user receiver is not known in advance since it changes at each new scheduling slot depending on the scheduling decisions of all interfering base stations. In order to cope with this uncertainty, we consider the joint operation of scheduling, MU-MIMO beamforming and Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ). We develop a game-theoretic framework for this problem and build on stochastic optimization techniques in order to find optimal scheduling and ARQ schemes. Particularizing our framework to the case of "outage service rates", we obtain a scheme based on adaptive variable-rate coding at the physical layer, combined with ARQ at the Logical Link Control (ARQ-LLC). Then, we present a novel scheme based on incremental redundancy Hybrid ARQ (HARQ) that is able to achieve a throughput performance arbitrarily close to the "genie-aided service rates", with no need for a genie that provides non-causally the ICI power levels. The novel HARQ scheme is both easier to implement and superior in performance with respect to the conventional combination of adaptive variable-rate coding and ARQ-LLC.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Communications, v2: small correction

MmWave Massive MIMO Based Wireless Backhaul for 5G Ultra-Dense Network

Ultra-dense network (UDN) has been considered as a promising candidate for future 5G network to meet the explosive data demand. To realize UDN, a reliable, Gigahertz bandwidth, and cost-effective backhaul connecting ultra-dense small-cell base stations (BSs) and macro-cell BS is prerequisite. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) can provide the potential Gbps traffic for wireless backhaul. Moreover, mmWave can be easily integrated with massive MIMO for the improved link reliability. In this article, we discuss the feasibility of mmWave massive MIMO based wireless backhaul for 5G UDN, and the benefits and challenges are also addressed. Especially, we propose a digitally-controlled phase-shifter network (DPSN) based hybrid precoding/combining scheme for mmWave massive MIMO, whereby the low-rank property of mmWave massive MIMO channel matrix is leveraged to reduce the required cost and complexity of transceiver with a negligible performance loss. One key feature of the proposed scheme is that the macro-cell BS can simultaneously support multiple small-cell BSs with multiple streams for each smallcell BS, which is essentially different from conventional hybrid precoding/combining schemes typically limited to single-user MIMO with multiple streams or multi-user MIMO with single stream for each user. Based on the proposed scheme, we further explore the fundamental issues of developing mmWave massive MIMO for wireless backhaul, and the associated challenges, insight, and prospect to enable the mmWave massive MIMO based wireless backhaul for 5G UDN are discussed.Comment: This paper has been accepted by IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine. This paper is related to 5G, ultra-dense network (UDN), millimeter waves (mmWave) fronthaul/backhaul, massive MIMO, sparsity/low-rank property of mmWave massive MIMO channels, sparse channel estimation, compressive sensing (CS), hybrid digital/analog precoding/combining, and hybrid beamforming. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=730653

Sum-Rate Maximization for Linearly Precoded Downlink Multiuser MISO Systems with Partial CSIT: A Rate-Splitting Approach

This paper considers the Sum-Rate (SR) maximization problem in downlink MU-MISO systems under imperfect Channel State Information at the Transmitter (CSIT). Contrary to existing works, we consider a rather unorthodox transmission scheme. In particular, the message intended to one of the users is split into two parts: a common part which can be recovered by all users, and a private part recovered by the corresponding user. On the other hand, the rest of users receive their information through private messages. This Rate-Splitting (RS) approach was shown to boost the achievable Degrees of Freedom (DoF) when CSIT errors decay with increased SNR. In this work, the RS strategy is married with linear precoder design and optimization techniques to achieve a maximized Ergodic SR (ESR) performance over the entire range of SNRs. Precoders are designed based on partial CSIT knowledge by solving a stochastic rate optimization problem using means of Sample Average Approximation (SAA) coupled with the Weighted Minimum Mean Square Error (WMMSE) approach. Numerical results show that in addition to the ESR gains, the benefits of RS also include relaxed CSIT quality requirements and enhanced achievable rate regions compared to conventional transmission with NoRS.Comment: accepted to IEEE Transactions on Communication

Achieving "Massive MIMO" Spectral Efficiency with a Not-so-Large Number of Antennas

The main focus and contribution of this paper is a novel network-MIMO TDD architecture that achieves spectral efficiencies comparable with "Massive MIMO", with one order of magnitude fewer antennas per active user per cell. The proposed architecture is based on a family of network-MIMO schemes defined by small clusters of cooperating base stations, zero-forcing multiuser MIMO precoding with suitable inter-cluster interference constraints, uplink pilot signals reuse across cells, and frequency reuse. The key idea consists of partitioning the users population into geographically determined "bins", such that all users in the same bin are statistically equivalent, and use the optimal network-MIMO architecture in the family for each bin. A scheduler takes care of serving the different bins on the time-frequency slots, in order to maximize a desired network utility function that captures some desired notion of fairness. This results in a mixed-mode network-MIMO architecture, where different schemes, each of which is optimized for the served user bin, are multiplexed in time-frequency. In order to carry out the performance analysis and the optimization of the proposed architecture in a clean and computationally efficient way, we consider the large-system regime where the number of users, the number of antennas, and the channel coherence block length go to infinity with fixed ratios. The performance predicted by the large-system asymptotic analysis matches very well the finite-dimensional simulations. Overall, the system spectral efficiency obtained by the proposed architecture is similar to that achieved by "Massive MIMO", with a 10-fold reduction in the number of antennas at the base stations (roughly, from 500 to 50 antennas).Comment: Full version with appendice (proofs of theorems). A shortened version without appendice was submitted to IEEE Trans. on Wireless Commun. Appendix B was revised after submissio

On the Optimal Feedback Rate in Interference-Limited Multi-Antenna Cellular Systems

We consider a downlink cellular network where multi-antenna base stations (BSs) transmit data to single-antenna users by using one of two linear precoding methods with limited feedback: 1) maximum ratio transmission (MRT) for serving a single user or 2) zero forcing (ZF) for serving multiple users. The BS and user locations are drawn from a Poisson point process, allowing expressions for the signal-to-interference coverage probability and the ergodic spectral efficiency to be derived as a function of system parameters, such as the number of BS antennas and feedback bits, and the pathloss exponent. We find a tight lower bound on the optimum number of feedback bits to maximize the net spectral efficiency, which captures the overall system gain by considering both of downlink and uplink spectral efficiency using limited feedback. Our main finding is that, when using MRT, the optimum number of feedback bits scales linearly with the number of antennas, and logarithmically with the channel coherence time. When using ZF, the feedback scales in the same ways as MRT, but also linearly with the pathloss exponent. The derived results provide system-level insights into the preferred channel codebook size by averaging the effects of short-term fading and long-term pathloss.1111Ysciescopu