Performance Analysis of Random Vector Quantization Limited Feedback Beamforming

Beamforming is a simple technique for guarding against the negative effects of fading in a multiple antenna wireless systems. Unfortunately this technique requires the transmitter to have knowledge of the forward-link channel, which is often not available a priori. One solution is to design the beamforming vector using a limited number of feedback bits sent from the receiver to the transmitter. In limited feedback beamforming, every beamforming vector lies in a codebook known to both the transmitter and receiver. Random vector quantization (RVQ) is a simple approach to codebook design that generates the vectors independently from a uniform distribution on the complex unit sphere. This paper derives important performance metrics for a multiple-input single-output (MISO) RVQ system employing limited feedback beamforming