Self-Organised Beamforming and Opportunistic Scheduling in an OFDM-based Cellular Network

In this paper, a system concept is proposed and investigated for the downlink of a cellular network which combines a self-organised beamforming approach with an opportunistic scheduling concept. In the considered OFDM-based system, different beams or grids of beams are formed in time and frequency and the available space-time-frequency resources are allocated by intelligent scheduling algorithms to those mobile terminals with high instantaneous Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise Ratios (SINRs). Analysing the impact of various design criteria, such as the type of beamforming, scheduling concepts and frequency reuse factors, the performance in the cellular network regarding throughput and fairness is assessed.