Reuse within a cell-interference rejection or multiuser detection?

We investigate the use of an antenna array at the receiver in frequency-division multiple-access/time-division multiple-access systems to let several users share one communication channel within a cell. A decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) which simultaneously detects all incoming signals is compared to a set of DFEs, each detecting one signal and rejecting the remaining as interference. We also introduce the existence of a zero-forcing solution to the equalization problem as an indicator of near-far resistance of different detector structures. Near-far resistance guarantees good performance if the noise level is low. Simulations show that with an increased number of users in the cell, the incremental performance degradation is small for the multiuser detector. We have also applied the proposed algorithms to experimental measurements from a DCS-1800 antenna array testbed. The results from these confirm that reuse within a cell is indeed possible using either an eight-element array antenna or a two-branch diversity sector antenna. Multiuser detection will, in general, provide better performance than interference rejection, especially when the power levels of the users differ substantially. The difference in performance is of crucial importance when the available training sequences are short.