AoD-Adaptive Channel Feedback for FDD Massive MIMO Systems With Multiple-Antenna Users

In this paper, we propose an efficient feedback scheme for an angle of departure (AoD) based channel estimation in frequency division duplex (FDD) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with multiple antennas at the users. The channel feedback scheme is based on zero-forcing block diagonalization (BD) and it is proposed for two distinct design cases; in case I, the number of streams intended for a user equals the number of antennas at that user; in case II, the number of streams is less than the number of receive antennas. Case I is applicable in scenarios where high data rate requirements are needed as it transmits data symbols over all of the available degrees of freedom of the system. Diversely, case II is applicable when reliability is a priority in the system as it uses the additional receive antennas at the user to achieve spatial diversity to enhance the link performance. The proposed scheme is analyzed for the two cases by quantifying the downlink rate gap from the case of perfect channel state information (CSI). Moreover, we design structured feedback codebooks based on optimal subspace packing in the Grassmannian manifold and show that these codes achieve close performance to the perfect CSI case. Additionally, a vector quantization scheme is proposed to quantize the user’s channel matrix when optimal power allocation across multiple streams is adopted in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region. The feedback codebooks are based on optimal line packing in the Grassmannian manifold, where every vector of the user’s channel matrix is quantized and sent to the BaseStation. The results demonstrate a fundamental trade-off between vector quantization, with power optimization across the data streams, and subspace quantization. Specifically, vector quantization codebooks outperform subspace-based codebooks in the low SNR region, while the situation is reversed in the high SNR region.