Variable-Rate Transmission for MIMO Time-Correlated Channels With Limited Feedback

In this paper we consider variable-rate transmission for time-correlated MIMO (multi-input multi-output) channels with limited feedback. The number of bits loaded on each subchannel of the MIMO system is dynamically assigned according to the current channel condition and fed back to the transmitter. As the channel is time-correlated, bit loading is a vector signal that is also time-correlated. We propose to feedback bit loading using predictive coding, which is known to be a powerful quantization technique when the underlying signal is correlated in time. Assuming the channel is a first-order Gauss-Markov random process, we derive the predictor for the bit loading to be coded and analyze the corresponding prediction error variance when the channel is varying slowly. By exploiting the prediction error variance, we adapt the quantizer of the prediction error to have a smaller quantization error. Furthermore we show that the prediction error variance is proportional to a term that depends only on the time-correlation coefficient. This leads to the conclusion that, a codebook that is designed for a particular time correlation coefficient can be easily modified to a codebook for a different correlation coefficient without redesign. Simulations are presented to demonstrate that the proposed predictive coding can achieve a very good approximation of the desired transmission rate with a very low feedback rate.