Optimal joint probing and transmission strategy for maximizing throughput in wireless systems

In broadcast fading channel, channel variations can be exploited through what is referred to as multi-user diversity and opportunistic scheduling for improving system performance. To achieve the gains promised by this kind of diversity, the transmitter has to accurately track the channel variations of the various receivers, which consumes resources (time, energy, bandwidth), and thus reduces the resources remaining for effective data transmissions. The transmitter may decide not to acquire or probe the channel conditions of certain receivers, either because these receivers are presumably experiencing severe fading, or because the transmitter wishes to spare resources for data transmissions. It may also decide to transmit to a receiver without probing its channel; in such cases, the transmitter guesses the channel state, which often results in a reduction of the transmission rate compared to when the transmitter knows the channel state. Ultimately, the transmitter has to decide to which receiver it should transmit. In this paper, we identifying the joint probing and transmission strategies realizing the optimal trade-off between the channel state acquisition and the effective data transmission. The objective is to maximize the system throughput. Finally, we propose several extensions of the proposed strategy, including a scheme to maximize the system utility and a scheme to ensure the system stability.