A dynamic clustering algorithm for downlink CoMP systems with multiple antenna UEs

Abstract

Coordinated multi-point (CoMP) schemes have been widely studied in the recent years to tackle inter-cell interference. In practice, latency and throughput constraints on the backhaul allow the organization of only small clusters of base stations (BSs) where joint processing (JP) can be implemented. In this work, we focus on downlink CoMP-JP with multiple antenna user equipments (UEs) where the additional degrees of freedom are used to suppress the residual interference by using an interference rejection combiner (IRC) and allow a multi-stream transmission. The main contribution of this paper is the development of a novel dynamic BS clustering algorithm with corresponding UE scheduling. In particular, we first define a set of candidate BS clusters depending on long-term channel conditions. Then, in each time block, we develop a resource allocation scheme where: (a) for each candidate BS cluster, with corresponding scheduled UEs, a weighted sum rate is estimated and then (b) we select the set of non-overlapping BS clusters that maximizes the downlink system weighted sum rate. Numerical results show that much higher rates are achieved when UEs are equipped with multiple antennas and dynamic BS clustering is used.