On the Expected Rate of Slowly Fading Channels With Quantized Side Information

We study a multiple-layer variable-rate system employing quantized feedback to maximize the expected rate over a single-input single-output slowly fading Gaussian channel. The transmitter uses partial channel-state information, which is obtained via an optimized resolution-constrained feedback link, to adapt the power and to assign code layer rates, subject to different power constraints. To systematically design the system parameters, we develop a simple iterative algorithm that successfully exploits results in the study of parallel broadcast channels. We present the necessary and sufficient conditions for single-layer coding to be optimal, irrespective of the number of code layers that the system can afford. Unlike in the ergodic case, even coarsely quantized feedback is shown to improve the expected rate considerably. Our results also indicate that with as little as one bit of feedback information, the role of multilayer coding reduces significantly