Maximizing capacity with trellis exploration aided limited feedback precoder design for multiuser MIMO-MAC

In this paper, a linear trellis based precoding technique is proposed for maximizing the multiuser MIMO capacity in a multiple access channel with inter symbol interference (ISI). We use the trellis exploration algorithm to design a precoding matrix that minimizes the interference from other users by allocating power in the appropriate eigenmodes. Employing a finite number of phases, the precoder matrix for each user is first custom designed at the receiver. Then a bit sequence indicating the phase indices of the optimized precoding matrix elements for the corresponding user is fed back to the transmitter. We show that under this approach, the sum rate capacity achieved is comparable to the optimal sum-rate capacity employing the well-known water filling solution with complete channel knowledge at the transmitter for spatio-temporal vector coding (STVC). Our simulations for various multiuser MIMO cases, show that the per user precoding with limited feedback and equal power allocation strategy achieves desirable capacity gains relative to the eigenbeamforming and Grassmannian precoding. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.