Multi-User MISO Broadcast Channel with User-Cooperating Decoder

In a wireless multi-user system using multiple antennas, full multiplexing gain can be achieved through perfect channel state information (CSI) at the base station (BS). However, because of the limitations on the feedback rate and of standard requirements, such as the 3GPP, it is difficult to obtain perfect CSI, or even partial CSI with the extremely large number of feedback bits needed at the region of high signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) in practical systems. Instead of a feedback channel resource, this paper considers another resource for the system, a cooperation channel, which can be used by users to participate in cooperation in a broadcast fading channel. The cooperation among users in a multi-user system has the effect of transforming it into a cooperative point-to-point MIMO system. This paper analyzes the cooperation channel gain and the mobile power used in a cooperation channel to maintain a constant rate gap against the zero-forcing beamforming scheme with full CSI at the BS. In addition, the performance results of this proposed cooperation strategy are provided by computer simulations.