Multi-user diversity and multiplexing with multiple coherent beams in wireless systems

In this paper, we propose a multi-beam multiplexing scheme that can simultaneously achieve spatial multiplexing gain and multi-user diversity (MUD) gain by generating coherent multiple beams in the multi-user domain. Multiple beams are generated to provide multiple channels in parallel, making it possible to achieve the MUD gain through each channel. Since the transmission power is spilt into multiple channels, the signal-to-noise power ratio (SNR) of each channel is reduced inversely proportional to the number of beams. However, multiple beams are utilized to make the multiplexing gain much larger than the decrease of SNR, increasing the overall system capacity. The proposed scheme is applicable to both multi-input multi-output (MIMO) and multi-input single-output (MISO) schemes, enabling the use of flexible antenna structures in the receiver.