Distributed Multicell Precoding for Network MIMO

Abstract

Interference is a performance limiting factor in dense cellular networks with aggressive frequency reuse. Cooperation among base stations (BSs) is a promising approach for improving data rates by eliminating or mitigating interference. For the downlink, the highest spectral efficiency gains are achieved through precoding with full coordination, which requires complete channel state information (CSI) and data sharing among BSs at the cost of significant utilization of the backhaul. In this chapter, the authors introduce distributed precoding techniques for the multicell MIMO downlink. Each BS designs its own precoder without requiring data or downlink CSI of links from other BSs. The authors also study the effect of imperfect CSI on these precoders and introduce a robust precoder in the presence of CSI uncertainty. Simulations show that these methods enjoy a rate increase with SNR similar to multicell joint dirty paper coding in the high SNR regime due to effective interference mitigation.