Linear Precoding and Equalization for Network MIMO with Partial Cooperation

A cellular multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) downlink system is studied in which each base station (BS) transmits to some of the users, so that each user receives its intended signal from a subset of the BSs. This scenario is referred to as network MIMO with partial cooperation, since only a subset of the BSs are able to coordinate their transmission towards any user. The focus of this paper is on the optimization of linear beamforming strategies at the BSs and at the users for network MIMO with partial cooperation. Individual power constraints at the BSs are enforced, along with constraints on the number of streams per user. It is first shown that the system is equivalent to a MIMO interference channel with generalized linear constraints (MIMO-IFC-GC). The problems of maximizing the sum-rate(SR) and minimizing the weighted sum mean square error (WSMSE) of the data estimates are non-convex, and suboptimal solutions with reasonable complexity need to be devised. Based on this, suboptimal techniques that aim at maximizing the sum-rate for the MIMO-IFC-GC are reviewed from recent literature and extended to the MIMO-IFC-GC where necessary. Novel designs that aim at minimizing the WSMSE are then proposed. Extensive numerical simulations are provided to compare the performance of the considered schemes for realistic cellular systems.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, published in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, June 201

Iterative Polite Water-Filling for Weighted Sum Rate Maximization in iTree Networks

It is well known that in general, the traditional water-filling is far from optimal in networks. We recently found the long-sought network version of water-filling named polite water-filling that is optimal for a large class of MIMO networks called B-MAC networks, of which interference Tree (iTree) networks is a subset whose interference graphs have no directional loop. iTree networks is a natural extension of both broadcast channel (BC) and multiaccess channel (MAC) and possesses many desirable properties for further information theoretic study. Given the optimality of the polite water-filling, general purpose optimization algorithms for networks are no longer needed because they do not exploit the structure of the problems. Here, we demonstrate it through the weighted sum-rate maximization. The significance of the results is that the algorithm can be easily modified for general B-MAC networks with interference loops. It illustrates the properties of iTree networks and for the special cases of MAC and BC, replaces the current steepest ascent algorithms for finding the capacity regions. The fast convergence and high accuracy of the proposed algorithms are verified by simulation