Performance of Quantized Random Beamforming in Delay-Tolerant Machine-Type Communication

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communication represents a new paradigm for mobile cellular networks, where a massive number of low-cost devices request the transfer of small amounts of data without human intervention. One option to tackle this problem is obtained by combining random beamforming (RBF) with opportunistic scheduling. RBF can be used to induce larger channel fluctuations, and opportunistic scheduling can be used to select M2M devices when their overall channel quality is good. Traditional RBF does not fulfill M2M requirements, because overall channel quality needs to be tracked continuously. In order to tackle this limitation, a novel codebook-based RBF architecture that identifies in advance the time instants in which overall channel quality should be reported, within a coherence time window, is proposed. This opportunistic feedback mechanism reduces signaling overhead and enables energy saving at M2M devices. A simplified methodology is presented to evaluate the system mean data rate, using for this purpose closed form formulas derived from SNR distribution approximations. Results reveal that the performance loss that is experienced for introducing the proposed modifications to traditional RBF scheme is negligible. The concepts analyzed in this paper provide useful insights, and show that codebook-based RBF with simplified opportunistic scheduling algorithms is an excellent combination to provide wide-area M2M services with low-cost devices and limited signaling overhead.