Scheduling in Large Scale MIMO Downlink Systems

This dissertation deals with the problem of scheduling in wireless MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) downlink systems. The focus is on the large-scale systems when the number of subscribers is large. In part one, the problem of user selection in MIMO Broadcast channel is studied. An efficient user selection algorithm is proposed and is shown to achieve the sum-rate capacity of the system asymptotically (in terms of the number of users), while requiring (i)~low-complexity precoding scheme of zero-forcing beam-forming at the base station, (ii)~low amount of feedback from the users to the base station, (iii)~low complexity of search. Part two studies the problem of MIMO broadcast channel with partial Channel State Information (CSI) at the transmitter. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the amount of CSI at the transmitter (which is provided to via feedback links from the receivers) in order to achieve the sum-rate capacity of the system are derived. The analysis is performed in various singnal to noise ratio regimes. In part three, the problem of sum-rate maximization in a broadcast channel with large number of users, when each user has a stringent delay constraint, is studied. In this part, a new definition of fairness, called short-term fairness is introduced. A scheduling algorithm is proposed that achieves: (i) Maximum sum-rate throughput and (ii) Maximum short-term fairness of the system, simultaneously, while satisfying the delay constraint for each individual user with probability one. In part four, the sum-rate capacity of MIMO broadcast channel, when the channels are Rician fading, is derived in various scenarios in terms of the value of the Rician factor and the distribution of the specular components of the channel

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

Generic Multiuser Coordinated Beamforming for Underlay Spectrum Sharing

The beamforming techniques have been recently studied as possible enablers for underlay spectrum sharing. The existing beamforming techniques have several common limitations: they are usually system model specific, cannot operate with arbitrary number of transmit/receive antennas, and cannot serve arbitrary number of users. Moreover, the beamforming techniques for underlay spectrum sharing do not consider the interference originating from the incumbent primary system. This work extends the common underlay sharing model by incorporating the interference originating from the incumbent system into generic combined beamforming design that can be applied on interference, broadcast or multiple access channels. The paper proposes two novel multiuser beamforming algorithms for user fairness and sum rate maximization, utilizing newly derived convex optimization problems for transmit and receive beamformers calculation in a recursive optimization. Both beamforming algorithms provide efficient operation for the interference, broadcast and multiple access channels, as well as for arbitrary number of antennas and secondary users in the system. Furthermore, the paper proposes a successive transmit/receive optimization approach that reduces the computational complexity of the proposed recursive algorithms. The results show that the proposed complexity reduction significantly improves the convergence rates and can facilitate their operation in scenarios which require agile beamformers computation.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figure

Information Exchange Limits in Cooperative MIMO Networks

Concurrent presence of inter-cell and intra-cell interferences constitutes a major impediment to reliable downlink transmission in multi-cell multiuser networks. Harnessing such interferences largely hinges on two levels of information exchange in the network: one from the users to the base-stations (feedback) and the other one among the base-stations (cooperation). We demonstrate that exchanging a finite number of bits across the network, in the form of feedback and cooperation, is adequate for achieving the optimal capacity scaling. We also show that the average level of information exchange is independent of the number of users in the network. This level of information exchange is considerably less than that required by the existing coordination strategies which necessitate exchanging infinite bits across the network for achieving the optimal sum-rate capacity scaling. The results provided rely on a constructive proof.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figur