Downlink Scheduling for QoS-Guaranteed Services in Multi-User MIMO Systems with Limited Feedback

Significant throughput gains and system fairness can be obtained by employing scheduling schemes based on precoding techniques. However, QoS guarantee requirements are seldom taken into account. In this paper, we propose a downlink scheduling algorithm for QoS-guaranteed services in multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with limited feedback. The proposed algorithm combines stream selection with multi-user packet scheduling. To maximize the overall capacity and reduce co-channel interference, streams are selected in accordance with preceding matrices. In multi-user packet scheduling, the base station first determines the SDMA region size for the primary streams. In addition, packet scheduling for the secondary streams is performed to completely exploit spatial multiplexing gains. Numerical results show that, at the cost of slightly lower system fairness, the proposed algorithm can achieve higher spectrum efficiency, and have a noticeable improvement in guaranteeing QoS requirements in terms of data rates and delay.