Sum Capacity of Multiuser MIMO Broadcast Channels with Block Diagonalization

The sum capacity of a Gaussian broadcast MIMO channel can be achieved with dirty paper coding (DPC). However, algorithms that approach the DPC sum capacity do not appear viable in the forseeable future, which motivates lower complexity interference suppression techniques. Block diagonalization (BD) is a linear preceding technique for downlink multiuser MIMO systems. With perfect channel knowledge at the transmitter, BD can eliminate other users' interference at each receiver. In this paper, we study the sum capacity of BD with and without receive antenna selection. We analytically compare BD without receive antenna selection to DPC for a set of given channels. It is shown that (1) if the user channels are orthogonal to each other, then BD achieves the same sum capacity as DPC; (2) if the user channels lie in the same subspace, then the gain of DPC over BD can be upper bounded by the minimum of the number of transmit and receive antennas. These observations also hold for BD with receive antenna selection. Further, we study the ergodic sum capacity of BD with and without receive antenna selection in a Rayleigh fading channel. Simulations show that BD can achieve a significant part of the total throughput of DPC. An upper bound on the ergodic sum capacity gain of DPC over BD is proposed for easy estimation of the gap between the sum capacity of DPC and BD without receive antenna selection.