A logical MIMO MAC approach for uplink access control in centralized wireless networks

The multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) technology has been extensively used to improve wireless physical channel capacity at the expense of increased implementation complexities especially at mobile terminals since either an antenna array or inter-terminal cooperation is required for implementation. Differently, this short paper discusses an alternative MIMO application, called logical MIMO (L-MIMO), which enables medium access control (MAC) to support concurrent transmissions from different terminals in the up-link channel of a centralized wireless network. This paper analytically shows that with this proposal, performances in terms of a terminal¿s throughput and average medium access delay as well as overall channel utilization can be improved significantly. Other advantages of L-MIMO over other MIMO applications includes (i) using 1-antenna mobile terminals, (ii) no need of inter-terminal cooperation and (iii) the major changes for implementation being constrained in the access point or base station of a network.