Abstract— We quantify cell-wide mean throughputs of single-input-single-output (SISO) and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO)-based cellular systems which em¬ploy multi-user diversity (MuD). Our study considers several practical and useful system-level design dimensions, includ¬ing: number of transmit/receive antennas; antenna-pattern (omni-directional or sectorized); degree of error-protection (Shannon coding, no coding or intermediate coding strate¬gies); allowable constellation size; Rician κ-factor; number of users and schedluling algorithm (Greedy (i.e. MAX C/I), Proportional Fair, or Equal Grade of Service) in single-cell (noise-limited) and multi-cell (co-channel-interference¬limited) environments.
We also provide a comparison between single-user systems having excess receive antennas and multi-user diversity systems with no excess receive antennas. Both strategies improve signal quality. Since economic costs of RF chains, mobile size and form factor limit the number of antennas a mobile receiver can have, multi-user diversity can be a more practical option. We observe that MuD with only a few scheduled users leads to comparable throughputs as receivers with excess receive antennas. By quantifying the average throughput gains that accrue from using multi-user SISO and MIMO-based cellular systems, this study serves the needs of operators to assess these promising technologies.

Index Terms—MIMO, MMSE, multipath fading, shadow fading, co-channel interference, cross-stream interference, interference cancellers, multi-user diversity, MAX, PF, EGoS

Cite:Rahul N. Pupala, Larry J. Greenstein,  and David G. Daut , "System-Level Impact of Multi-User Diversity in SISO and MIMO-based Cellular Systems," Journal of Communications, vol. 6, no.4, pp.274-284, 2011. Doi: 10.4304/jcm.6.4.274-284