Symbol-level Precoding for the Non-linear Multiuser MISO Downlink Channel

This paper investigates the problem of the interference among multiple simultaneous transmissions in the downlink channel of a multi-antenna wireless system. A symbol-level precoding scheme is considered, in order to exploit the multi-user interference and transform it into useful power at the receiver side, through a joint utilization of the data information and the channel state information. In this context, this paper presents novel strategies which exploit the potential of symbol-level precoding to control the per-antenna instantaneous transmit power. In particular, the power peaks amongst the transmitting antennas and the instantaneous power imbalances across the different transmitted streams are minimized. These objectives are particularly relevant with respect to the non-linear amplitude and phase distortions induced by the per-antenna amplifiers, which are important sources of performance degradation in practical systems. More specifically, this work proposes two different symbol-level precoding approaches. A first approach performs a weighted per-antenna power minimization, under Quality-of-Service constraints and under a lower bound constraint on the per-antenna transmit power. A second strategy performs a minimization of the spatial peak-to-average power ratio, evaluated amongst the transmitting antennas. Numerical results are presented in a comparative fashion to show the effectiveness of the proposed techniques, which outperform the state of the art symbol-level precoding schemes in terms of spatial peak-to-average power ratio, spatial dynamic range, and symbol-error-rate over non-linear channels

Per-antenna Power Minimization in Symbol-Level Precoding

This paper investigates the problem of the interference among multiple simultaneous transmissions in the downlink channel of a multi-antenna wireless system. A symbol-level precoding scheme is considered, where the data information is used, along with the channel state information, in order to exploit the multi-user interference and transform it into useful power at the receiver side. In this framework, it is important to consider the power limitations individually for each transmitting antenna, since a common practice in multi-antenna systems is the use of separate per-antenna amplifiers. Thus, herein the problem of per-antenna power minimization in symbol-level precoding is formulated and solved, under Quality-of-Service constraints. In the proposed approach, the precoding design is optimized in order to control the instantaneous power transmitted by the antennas, and more specifically to limit the power peaks, while guaranteeing some specific target signal-to-noise ratios at the receivers. Numerical results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, which outperforms the existing state of the art techniques in terms of reduction of the power peaks and of the peak-to-average power ratio across the transmitting antennas

Symbol-Level Multiuser MISO Precoding for Multi-level Adaptive Modulation

Symbol-level precoding is a new paradigm for multiuser downlink systems which aims at creating constructive interference among the transmitted data streams. This can be enabled by designing the precoded signal of the multiantenna transmitter on a symbol level, taking into account both channel state information and data symbols. Previous literature has studied this paradigm for MPSK modulations by addressing various performance metrics, such as power minimization and maximization of the minimum rate. In this paper, we extend this to generic multi-level modulations i.e. MQAM and APSK by establishing connection to PHY layer multicasting with phase constraints. Furthermore, we address adaptive modulation schemes which are crucial in enabling the throughput scaling of symbol-level precoded systems. In this direction, we design signal processing algorithms for minimizing the required power under per-user SINR or goodput constraints. Extensive numerical results show that the proposed algorithm provides considerable power and energy efficiency gains, while adapting the employed modulation scheme to match the requested data rate

Directional Modulation via Symbol-Level Precoding: A Way to Enhance Security

Wireless communication provides a wide coverage at the cost of exposing information to unintended users. As an information-theoretic paradigm, secrecy rate derives bounds for secure transmission when the channel to the eavesdropper is known. However, such bounds are shown to be restrictive in practice and may require exploitation of specialized coding schemes. In this paper, we employ the concept of directional modulation and follow a signal processing approach to enhance the security of multi-user MIMO communication systems when a multi-antenna eavesdropper is present. Enhancing the security is accomplished by increasing the symbol error rate at the eavesdropper. Unlike the information-theoretic secrecy rate paradigm, we assume that the legitimate transmitter is not aware of its channel to the eavesdropper, which is a more realistic assumption. We examine the applicability of MIMO receiving algorithms at the eavesdropper. Using the channel knowledge and the intended symbols for the users, we design security enhancing symbol-level precoders for different transmitter and eavesdropper antenna configurations. We transform each design problem to a linearly constrained quadratic program and propose two solutions, namely the iterative algorithm and one based on non-negative least squares, at each scenario for a computationally-efficient modulation. Simulation results verify the analysis and show that the designed precoders outperform the benchmark scheme in terms of both power efficiency and security enhancement.Comment: This manuscript is submitted to IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processin

Energy-Efficient Symbol-Level Precoding in Multiuser MISO Based on Relaxed Detection Region

This paper addresses the problem of exploiting interference among simultaneous multiuser transmissions in the downlink of multiple-antenna systems. Using symbol-level precoding, a new approach towards addressing the multiuser interference is discussed through jointly utilizing the channel state information (CSI) and data information (DI). The interference among the data streams is transformed under certain conditions to a useful signal that can improve the signal-to-interference noise ratio (SINR) of the downlink transmissions and as a result the system's energy efficiency. In this context, new constructive interference precoding techniques that tackle the transmit power minimization (min power) with individual SINR constraints at each user's receiver have been proposed. In this paper, we generalize the CI precoding design under the assumption that the received MPSK symbol can reside in a relaxed region in order to be correctly detected. Moreover, a weighted maximization of the minimum SNR among all users is studied taking into account the relaxed detection region. Symbol error rate analysis (SER) for the proposed precoding is discussed to characterize the tradeoff between transmit power reduction and SER increase due to the relaxation. Based on this tradeoff, the energy efficiency performance of the proposed technique is analyzed. Finally, extensive numerical results show that the proposed schemes outperform other state-of-the-art techniques.Comment: Submitted to IEEE transactions on Wireless Communications. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1408.470

Constructive Multiuser Interference in Symbol Level Precoding for the MISO Downlink Channel

This paper investigates the problem of interference among the simultaneous multiuser transmissions in the downlink of multiple antennas systems. Using symbol level precoding, a new approach towards the multiuser interference is discussed along this paper. The concept of exploiting the interference between the spatial multiuser transmissions by jointly utilizing the data information (DI) and channel state information (CSI), in order to design symbol-level precoders, is proposed. In this direction, the interference among the data streams is transformed under certain conditions to useful signal that can improve the signal to interference noise ratio (SINR) of the downlink transmissions. We propose a maximum ratio transmission (MRT) based algorithm that jointly exploits DI and CSI to glean the benefits from constructive multiuser interference. Subsequently, a relation between the constructive interference downlink transmission and physical layer multicasting is established. In this context, novel constructive interference precoding techniques that tackle the transmit power minimization (min power) with individual SINR constraints at each user's receivers is proposed. Furthermore, fairness through maximizing the weighted minimum SINR (max min SINR) of the users is addressed by finding the link between the min power and max min SINR problems. Moreover, heuristic precoding techniques are proposed to tackle the weighted sum rate problem. Finally, extensive numerical results show that the proposed schemes outperform other state of the art techniques.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

Boosting SWIPT via Symbol-Level Precoding

In this paper, we investigate a simultaneous wireless information and power transmission (SWIPT) system, wherein a single multi-antenna transmitter serves multiple single-antenna users which employ the power-splitting (PS) receiver architecture. We formulate a Symbol-Level Precoding (SLP) based transmit power minimization problem dependent on the minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and energy harvesting (EH) thresholds. We solve the corresponding non-negative convex quadratic optimization problem per time frame of transmitted symbols and study the benefits of proposed design under Zero-Forcing (ZF) Precoding, Direct Demand SLP (DD-SLP), and Squared-Root Demand SLP (RD-SLP) techniques. A static PS-ratio is fixed according to the SINR and EH demands to enable the segregation of intended received signals for information decoding (ID) and EH, respectively. Numerical results show the property conservation of SINR-enhancement via SLP at the ID unit while increasing the harvested energy at each of the end-users

Joint Power Allocation and User Association Optimization for Massive MIMO Systems

This paper investigates the joint power allocation and user association problem in multi-cell Massive MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) downlink (DL) systems. The target is to minimize the total transmit power consumption when each user is served by an optimized subset of the base stations (BSs), using non-coherent joint transmission. We first derive a lower bound on the ergodic spectral efficiency (SE), which is applicable for any channel distribution and precoding scheme. Closed-form expressions are obtained for Rayleigh fading channels with either maximum ratio transmission (MRT) or zero forcing (ZF) precoding. From these bounds, we further formulate the DL power minimization problems with fixed SE constraints for the users. These problems are proved to be solvable as linear programs, giving the optimal power allocation and BS-user association with low complexity. Furthermore, we formulate a max-min fairness problem which maximizes the worst SE among the users, and we show that it can be solved as a quasi-linear program. Simulations manifest that the proposed methods provide good SE for the users using less transmit power than in small-scale systems and the optimal user association can effectively balance the load between BSs when needed. Even though our framework allows the joint transmission from multiple BSs, there is an overwhelming probability that only one BS is associated with each user at the optimal solution.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, Accepted by IEEE Trans. Wireless Commu

Per-antenna Power Minimization in Symbol-level Precoding for the Multi-beam Satellite Downlink

This paper addresses the problem of multi-user interference in the forward downlink channel of a multi-beam satellite system. A symbol-level precoding scheme is considered, in order to exploit the multi-user interference and transform it into useful power at the receiver side, through a joint utilization of the data information and the channel state information. In this context, a per-antenna power minimization scheme is proposed, under Quality-of-Service constraints, for multi-level modulation schemes. The consideration of the power limitations individually for each transmitting RF chain is a central aspect of this work, and it allows to deal with systems using separate per-antenna amplifiers. Moreover, this feature is also particularly relevant for systems suffering non-linear effects of the channel. This is the case of satellite systems, where the non-linear amplifiers should be properly driven in order to reduce the detrimental saturation effect. In the proposed scheme, the transmitted signals are designed in order to reduce the power peaks, while guaranteeing some specific target signal-to-noise ratios at the receivers. Numerical results are presented in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, which is compared both to the state of the art in symbol-level precoding and to the conventional MMSE precoding approach