Updating Beamformers to Respond to Changes in Users

TL;DR

This paper develops efficient methods to update beamformers in multi-user MISO systems when users join, leave, or change their SINR requirements, avoiding full redesigns and reducing computational costs.

Contribution

It introduces novel modification techniques for beamformers to adapt to system changes without complete redesigns, applicable to MRT, ZF, and optimal beamformers.

Findings

Modified beamformers closely match full redesign performance.

Proposed methods significantly reduce computational complexity.

Effective for user entry, exit, and SINR requirement changes.

Abstract

We consider a multi-user multiple-input single-output downlink system that provides each user with a prespecified level of quality-of-service. The base station (BS) designs the beamformers so that each user receives a certain signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR). In contrast to most of the available literature in the beamforming field, we focus on the required modifications when the system changes. We specifically study three cases: (i) user entering the system, (ii) user leaving the system, and (iii) a change in the SINR target. We do so in order to avoid designing the entire system from scratch for every change in the requirements. In each of the three cases, we describe the modifications required to the beamforming directions and the power loading. We consider maximum ratio transmission (MRT), zero-forcing (ZF) and the optimal beamformers. The proposed modifications provide performance that is either exact or very close to that obtained when we redesign the entire system, while having much lower computational cost.