Capacity Analysis of MIMO Group-Broadcast Channels with Time-Division Scheduling

Abstract

This paper investigates the ergodic sum capacity for a MIMO group-broadcast channel with time-division scheduling (TDS). In this scheme, the overall user set is divided into subgroups, among which a single user subgroup which maximizes the instantaneous sum capacity will be scheduled at a time. In order to characterize the TDS performance, we first derived an asymptotic bound to the full capacity obtained by dirty paper coding (DPC). This bound is a closed-form expression and performs well for different system configurations. Further concerning practical precoding techniques, we studied its achievable sum capacity by using block-diagonalization (BD) and zero-forcing (ZF) precoding. Based on these results, the achieved scheduling gain by TDS over random scheduling is analyzed. We also compared the scheduling gains under different transmission strategies including DPC, BD, and ZF precoding. The results reveal that TDS provides the largest scheduling gain for the system with ZF precoding. Finally, we also discussed the effect of the group cardinality on the performance of TDS. Numerical results show the tightness of derived capacity bounds and verify the correctness of our analysis.