Zero-Forcing Precoding for the MIMO Broadcast Channel under Per-Antenna Power Constraints

We consider the downlink transmission of a wireless communication system where M antennas transmit independent information to a subset of K users, each equipped with a single antenna. The Shannon capacity of this MIMO broadcast channel (MIMO-BC) can be achieved using a non-linear preceding technique known as dirty paper coding (DPC) which is difficult to implement in practice. Motivated to study simpler transmission techniques, we focus on a linear precoding technique based on the zero-forcing (ZF) algorithm. In contrast to the typical sum power constraint (SPC), we consider a per-antenna power constraint (PAPC) motivated both by current antenna array designs where each antenna is powered by a separate amplifier and by future wireless networks where spatially separated antennas transmit cooperatively to users. We show that the problem of power allocation for maximizing the weighted sum rate under ZF with PAPC is a constrained convex optimization problem that can be solved using conventional numerical optimization techniques. For the special case of two users, we find an analytic solution based on waterfilling techniques. For the case where the number of users increases without bound, we show that ZF with PAPC is asymptotically optimal in the sense that the ratio of the expected sum-rate capacities between ZF with PAPC and DPC with SPC approaches one. We also show how the results can be generalized for multiple frequency bands and for a hybrid power constraint. Finally, we provide numerical results that show ZF with PAPC achieves a significant fraction of the optimum DPC sum-rate capacity in practical cases where K is bounded