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

Fundamental Limits in MIMO Broadcast Channels

This paper studies the fundamental limits of MIMO broadcast channels from a high level, determining the sum-rate capacity of the system as a function of system paramaters, such as the number of transmit antennas, the number of users, the number of receive antennas, and the total transmit power. The crucial role of channel state information at the transmitter is emphasized, as well as the emergence of opportunistic transmission schemes. The effects of channel estimation errors, training, and spatial correlation are studied, as well as issues related to fairness, delay and differentiated rate scheduling

Quantized vs. Analog Feedback for the MIMO Downlink: A Comparison between Zero-Forcing Based Achievable Rates

We consider a MIMO fading broadcast channel and compare the achievable ergodic rates when the channel state information at the transmitter is provided by analog noisy feedback or by quantized (digital) feedback. The superiority of digital feedback is shown, with perfect or imperfect CSIR, whenever the number of feedback channel uses per channel coefficient is larger than 1. Also, we show that by proper design of the digital feedback link, errors in the feedback have a minor effect even by using very simple uncoded modulation. Finally, we show that analog feedback achieves a fraction 1 - 2F of the optimal multiplexing gain even in the presence of a feedback delay, when the fading belongs to the class of Doppler processes with normalized maximum Doppler frequency shift 0 <= F <= 1/2.Comment: Submitted to ISIT, January 2007. 5 page

Adaptive Bit Partitioning for Multicell Intercell Interference Nulling with Delayed Limited Feedback

Base station cooperation can exploit knowledge of the users' channel state information (CSI) at the transmitters to manage co-channel interference. Users have to feedback CSI of the desired and interfering channels using finite-bandwidth backhaul links. Existing codebook designs for single-cell limited feedback can be used for multicell cooperation by partitioning the available feedback resources between the multiple channels. In this paper, a new feedback-bit allocation strategy is proposed, as a function of the delays in the communication links and received signal strengths in the downlink. Channel temporal correlation is modeled as a function of delay using the Gauss-Markov model. Closed-form expressions for bit partitions are derived to allocate more bits to quantize the stronger channels with smaller delays and fewer bits to weaker channels with larger delays, assuming random vector quantization. Cellular network simulations are used to show that the proposed algorithm yields higher sum-rates than an equal-bit allocation technique.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, July 201