Multi-User Non-Coherent Detection for Downlink MIMO Communication

Current cellular technologies are based on the concept of coherent communication, in which the channel matrix used for demodulation is estimated via reference or pilot signals. Coherent systems, however, involve a significant increase of the signalling overhead, especially when the number of transmission points is increased or when the mobile channel changes rapidly, which motivates the use of non-coherent techniques. This letter extends the use of non-coherent communications to a multi-user (MU) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) framework by combining superposition coding with a reduced-complexity detection method. Numerical results confirm that our scheme achieves higher user rates than non-coherent MU transmission based on time multiplexing. In addition to the well-known sum-rate gain of MU systems, an extra performance gain given by downlink non-coherent MU communication is shown and qualitatively justified.