Distributed Bi-Directional Training of Nonlinear Precoders and Receivers in Cellular Networks

Joint optimization of nonlinear precoders and receive filters is studied for both the uplink and downlink in a cellular system. For the uplink, the base transceiver station (BTS) receiver implements successive interference cancellation, and for the downlink, the BTS station pre-compensates for the interference with Tomlinson-Harashima precoding (THP). Convergence of alternating optimization of receivers and transmitters in a single cell is established when filters are updated according to a minimum mean squared error (MMSE) criterion, subject to appropriate power constraints. Adaptive algorithms are then introduced for updating the precoders and receivers in a distributed manner without channel state information, assuming time-division duplex transmissions with channel reciprocity. Instead of estimating the channels, the filters are directly estimated according to a least squares criterion via bi-directional training: Uplink pilots are used to update the feedforward and feedback filters, which are then used as interference pre-compensation filters for downlink training of the mobile receivers. Numerical results show that nonlinear filters can provide substantial gains relative to linear filters with limited forward-backward iterations.