Cooperative multicell ARQ in MIMO cellular systems

Coordinated multi-point processing at multiple base stations can improve coverage and throughput for future cellular systems. In this paper, we study the coordinated reception at multiple MIMO base stations by proposing cooperative multi-cell automatic repeat request (ARQ) protocols via wired backhaul links. In particular, we consider three protocols where the cooperative base stations employ different type of multi-cell processing, namely, opportunistic decode-and-forward, amplify-and-forward, and compress-and-forward processing. We derive the average packet error rates for these protocols. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed protocols compared to conventional ARQ protocol. Furthermore, the degree of improvement depends on the type of cooperative multicell ARQ protocols and the operating average signal-to-noise ratio of the main and backhaul links.