Channel Quantization and Feedback Optimization in Multiuser MIMO-OFDM Downlink Systems

We consider a multiuser MIMO-OFDM downlink system with single antenna mobile terminals (MTs) where channel state information at the base station is provided through limited uplink feedback (FB). In order to reduce the FB rate and signal processing complexity, the available bandwidth is divided into resource blocks (RBs) whose number of subcarriers reflects the coherence bandwidth of the channel. This approach is very common in the standardization of 4th generation wireless communication systems and justifies an independent channel quantization per RB. The paper has two main contributions: firstly we show conditions on the coherence bandwidth of the channel and the FB rate per RB that allow for a simpler characterization of the RB channel matrix by a space vector, causing negligible performance loss. This is accomplished after deriving a new performance metric for RB channel quantization that exploits spatial and frequency correlation. As a second contribution we investigate the trade-off between accurate channel knowledge and frequency/multiuser diversity. It is seen that even for a moderate number of MTs in the network, concentrating all the available FB bits in characterizing only one RB provides a significant gain in system throughput over a more classical distributed approach and this result is validated both analytically and by simulations.