Adaptive SU/MU-MIMO Scheduling for LTE-A Downlink Cellular Networks

In this paper, we investigate multi-user (MU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheduling for long term evolution advanced (LTE-A) downlink cellular networks, where only limited feedback designed for single-user (SU) MIMO is available. To help the base station (BS) allocate resource blocks (RBs), we develop codebook grouping and MU-SINR estimation techniques. Two adaptive SU/MU-MIMO scheduling methods are proposed to improve system throughput. Although the proposed adaptive SU/MU- MIMO scheduling algorithms exploit the only limited feedback in the LTE-A specification, they can improve the network throughput by 13% from system level simulation.