Cooperative communication with partial channel-state information in multiuser MIMO systems

Cooperative communication applying the multi-cell cooperative signal processing for the mobile stations (MSs) at the coordinated base stations (BSs) is a very promising candidate for intercell interference management in multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) cellular systems. Paying attention to the practical constraints in reality, the present paper reconsiders cooperative communication from a view of partial channel-state information (CSI), i.e., significant CSI and imperfect CSI. Significant CSI is the CSI of the channels which play a significant role in the system performance. We propose a novel MS-oriented dynamic significant channel selection distinguishing the significant useful channels from the significant interference channels. With the significant CSI corresponding to the selected significant channels, an efficient decentralized cooperative signal processing scheme is proposed to make a good compromise between system performance and implementation complexity. Meanwhile, the impact of imperfectness of the CSI on the system performance is assessed. The question about how much CSI should be considered as a function of the extent of imperfectness of the CSI in order to achieve optimum system performance is answered based on numerical results. Additionally, numerical results show that the proposed intelligent signal processing technique can significantly benefit from the proposed smart BS-antenna layout.