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

Spectrum Sharing in mmWave Cellular Networks via Cell Association, Coordination, and Beamforming

This paper investigates the extent to which spectrum sharing in mmWave networks with multiple cellular operators is a viable alternative to traditional dedicated spectrum allocation. Specifically, we develop a general mathematical framework by which to characterize the performance gain that can be obtained when spectrum sharing is used, as a function of the underlying beamforming, operator coordination, bandwidth, and infrastructure sharing scenarios. The framework is based on joint beamforming and cell association optimization, with the objective of maximizing the long-term throughput of the users. Our asymptotic and non-asymptotic performance analyses reveal five key points: (1) spectrum sharing with light on-demand intra- and inter-operator coordination is feasible, especially at higher mmWave frequencies (for example, 73 GHz), (2) directional communications at the user equipment substantially alleviate the potential disadvantages of spectrum sharing (such as higher multiuser interference), (3) large numbers of antenna elements can reduce the need for coordination and simplify the implementation of spectrum sharing, (4) while inter-operator coordination can be neglected in the large-antenna regime, intra-operator coordination can still bring gains by balancing the network load, and (5) critical control signals among base stations, operators, and user equipment should be protected from the adverse effects of spectrum sharing, for example by means of exclusive resource allocation. The results of this paper, and their extensions obtained by relaxing some ideal assumptions, can provide important insights for future standardization and spectrum policy.Comment: 15 pages. To appear in IEEE JSAC Special Issue on Spectrum Sharing and Aggregation for Future Wireless Network

Achievable Rates of Multi-User Millimeter Wave Systems with Hybrid Precoding

Millimeter wave (mmWave) systems will likely employ large antenna arrays at both the transmitters and receivers. A natural application of antenna arrays is simultaneous transmission to multiple users, which requires multi-user precoding at the transmitter. Hardware constraints, however, make it difficult to apply conventional lower frequency MIMO precoding techniques at mmWave. This paper proposes and analyzes a low complexity hybrid analog/digital beamforming algorithm for downlink multi-user mmWave systems. Hybrid precoding involves a combination of analog and digital processing that is motivated by the requirement to reduce the power consumption of the complete radio frequency and mixed signal hardware. The proposed algorithm configures hybrid precoders at the transmitter and analog combiners at multiple receivers with a small training and feedback overhead. For this algorithm, we derive a lower bound on the achievable rate for the case of single-path channels, show its asymptotic optimality at large numbers of antennas, and make useful insights for more general cases. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm offers higher sum rates compared with analog-only beamforming, and approaches the performance of the unconstrained digital precoding solutions.Comment: to be presented in IEEE ICC 2015 - Workshop on 5G & Beyond - Enabling Technologies and Application