Coordinated Cell Threshold user pairing criteria for uplink CoMP MU-MIMO

Multi-User Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) technique is introduced into 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long-Term Evolution (LTE) to enhance system throughput. Besides, Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) transmission/reception is considered by LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) standard to improve the cell-edge throughput. However, some new problems appear with the promotion of MU-MIMO technique in the CoMP scenario. The existing user pairing algorithms proposed for LTE do not take the state of multi-cells into account. It is necessary to enhance user pairing algorithm to fit the CoMP MU-MIMO scenario. Consequently this paper presents a Coordinated Cell Threshold Criteria (CCTC) algorithm for uplink CoMP MU-MIMO scenario. The CCTC algorithm considers the channel state information of entire CoMP cells and sets the threshold to avoid user pairing with bad channel orthogonal from paired users to coordinate cells. Simulation results show that CCTC can significantly enhance system throughput while it is utilized in uplink CoMP user pairing.