Multi-Cell MIMO Downlink with Cell Cooperation and Fair Scheduling: a Large-System Limit Analysis

TL;DR

This paper develops an efficient analytical method to evaluate the ergodic throughput of multi-cell MIMO downlink systems with cooperation and fairness, outperforming traditional simulation approaches.

Contribution

It introduces a novel large-system limit analysis combining random matrix theory and convex optimization for realistic cellular network models.

Findings

Accurately approximates finite-system throughput with small user counts.

Efficiently evaluates systems with various cooperation schemes.

Provides insights into the impact of cooperation and fairness on throughput.

Abstract

We consider the downlink of a cellular network with multiple cells and multi-antenna base stations, including a realistic distance-dependent pathloss model, clusters of cooperating cells, and general "fairness" requirements. Beyond Monte Carlo simulation, no efficient computation method to evaluate the ergodic throughput of such systems has been presented so far. We propose an analytic solution based on the combination of large random matrix results and convex optimization. The proposed method is computationally much more efficient than Monte Carlo simulation and provides surprisingly accurate approximations for the actual finite-dimensional systems, even for a small number of users and base station antennas. Numerical examples include 2-cell linear and three-sectored 7-cell planar layouts, with no inter-cell cooperation, sector cooperation, or full inter-cell cooperation.