Degrees of freedom in wireless multiuser spatial multiplex systems with multiple antennas

This letter investigates the structure of the optimal spatial multiplex scheme in a multiuser multiantenna wireless fading environment. Based on a sum-capacity criterion, this letter shows that the optimal transmission strategy in an uplink or downlink channel with n antennas at the base-station involves more than n users at the same time. In particular, when remote users are equipped with m antennas each, the maximum number of data streams is shown to be upper bounded by n², with each user transmitting or receiving up to m² data streams. This gives a dimension-counting interpretation for multiuser diversity. Multiple antennas at the base-station increases the total number of dimensions, thus allowing more users to transmit and receive at the same time. By contrast, multiple antennas at the remote terminal allow a single user to occupy multiple dimensions, which increases its transmission rate, but also has the potential effect of precluding simultaneous transmission by other users