Achievable rate analysis and feedback design for multiuser relay with imperfect CSI

This paper investigates a multiuser MIMO relay downlink system with imperfect channel estimation and limited feedback. Compared with the system using perfect channel state information (CSI), we analyze the achievable rate loss due to CSI mismatch arising from both channel estimation and CSI quantization feedback. An upper bound to the rate loss is firstly derived to characterize the effect of imperfect CSI. Given the rate loss bound, we then present a limited feedback strategy for both two-hop channels in the relay system to guarantee a bounded rate loss for growing SNRs. This newly presented strategy reveals the relationship between CSI quantization level and other system parameters, including the transmit power and the pilots for channel estimation, on the entire two-hop system. Finally, computer simulations are carried out for verifying the correctness of our derived results.