SDMA with a Sum Feedback Rate Constraint

Space division multiple access (SDMA) is capable of achieving sum capacity that grows double logarithmically with the number of users. The sum rate for channel state information (CSI) feedback, however, increases linearly with the number of users, reducing the effective uplink capacity. To address this problem, a novel SDMA design is proposed, where the sum feedback rate is upper-bounded by a constant. This design consists of algorithms for CSI quantization, threshold based CSI feedback, and joint beamforming and scheduling. The key feature of the proposed approach is the use of feedback thresholds to select feedback users with large channel gains and small CSI quantization errors such that the sum feedback rate constraint is satisfied. Despite this constraint, the proposed SDMA design is shown to achieve a sum capacity growth rate close to the optimal one. Numerical results show that the proposed SDMA design is capable of attaining higher sum capacities than existing ones, even though the sum feedback rate is bounded.