Multi User Diversity Evaluation in MIMO HSDPA Downlink Channels

A multiple transmit antenna, single receive antenna (per receiver) downlink channel with limited channel feedback is considered. Given a constraint on the total system-wide channel feedback, the following question is considered: is it preferable to get low-rate feedback from a large number of receivers or to receive high-rate/high-quality feedback from a smaller number of (randomly selected) receivers. Acquiring feedback from many users allows multi-user diversity to be exploited, while high-rate feedback allows for very precise selection of beamforming directions. It is shown that systems in which a limited number of users feedback high-rate channel information significantly outperform low-rate/many user systems.