Abstract:
A method of enhancing performance of downlink multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output transmissions in a wireless communication system comprising a communication device and a network is disclosed. The method comprises generating a feedback report comprising a correlation-based validity threshold (CVT); and transmitting the feedback report from the communication device to the network.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
       [0001]    This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/607,016, filed on Mar. 6, 2012, entitled “Feedback Methods for MU-MIMO”, the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entirety. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0002]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0003]    The present invention relates to a method and apparatus utilized in a wireless communication system, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus of enhancing performance of downlink multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output transmissions in a wireless communication system. 
         [0004]    2. Description of the Prior Art 
         [0005]    A long-term evolution (LTE) system supporting the 3GPP Rel-8 standard and/or the 3GPP Rel-9 standard are developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) as a successor of a universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) for further enhancing performance of the UMTS to satisfy increasing needs of users. The LTE system includes a new radio interface and a new radio network architecture that provides high data rate, low latency, packet optimization, and improved system capacity and coverage. In the LTE system, a radio access network known as an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) includes multiple evolved Node-Bs (eNBs) for communicating with multiple UEs, and communicating with a core network including a mobility management entity (MME), a serving gateway, etc., for Non-Access Stratum (NAS) control. 
         [0006]    A LTE-advanced (LTE-A) system, as its name implies, is an evolution of the LTE system. The LTE-A system targets faster switching between power states, improves performance at the coverage edge of an eNB, and includes advanced techniques, such as carrier aggregation (CA), coordinated multipoint transmission/reception (CoMP), uplink (UL) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), downlink MU-MIMO, etc. For a UE and an eNB to communicate with each other in the LTE-A system, the UE and the eNB must support standards developed for the LTE-A system, such as the 3GPP Rel-10 standard or later versions. 
         [0007]    The downlink MU-MIMO technique, which is an advanced multi-antenna technique, can be used in an eNB to simultaneously transmit independent data to a plurality of UEs in the same frequency resources. A precoder is constructed to implement the downlink MU-MIMO technique. In other words, the construction of the precoder is based on feedback information from the UEs and regarded as an essential key to implement the downlink MU-MIMO technique. Therefore, each of the UEs should respectively send its favorite precoder index as well as the channel quality indication (CQI), to assist the eNB to construct a precoder matrix for downlink MU-MIMO transmissions. 
         [0008]    Since a potential interference may exist in a paired UE assigned in a downlink MU-MIMO transmission, a resultant performance may be degraded due to over-estimated CQI and inappropriate modulation and coding schemes (MCS) assignment, and/or unsuitable mode selection from single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO) mode and MU-MIMO mode. Therefore, the standardization of 3GPP LTE has provided several directions for MU-MIMO enhancements, such as additional feedback with a precoder matrix index (PMI), a best companion PMI (BCI) and a multi-user CQI (MU-CQI). Generally speaking, PMI represents the precoder to be applied at the eNB that maximizes the signal power with respect to the UE, and BCI represents the precoder for the paired UE at the eNB that causes least interference to the UE. In addition, MU-CQI is the CQI derived by taking interference from the paired UE into account. 
         [0009]    Besides, a paper, “Y. Du, J. Tong, J Zhang and S. Liu, ‘Evaluation of PMI Feedback Schemes for MU-MIMO Pairing’,  IEEE Systems Journal,  vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 505-510, December 2010”, has provided a feedback method for a UE. In this paper, a codebook of the precoder is divided into several clusters, each cluster is consisted of multiple codebook entries, and an index of the best companion cluster (BCC) is as a feedback instead of the BCI. The index of the BCC corresponds to a precoder cluster that contains a desirable BCI, and the eNB treats all entries in the BCC as the feasible companion precoders that can be paired with the UE. Besides, the MU-CQI is reported based on the average among all candidate companion precoders in the BCC. 
         [0010]    Since the number of the BCCs is smaller than the codebook size, the approach provides scheduling flexibility while reducing feedback overhead. However, the method in the paper cannot capture the true degradation in the MU-CQI and the codebook clustering is specified offline, so that the performance of the method would be dramatically deteriorated when some of the more advanced precoding techniques are introduced in the future wireless communication systems. Therefore, it is necessary to provide other feedback methods to optimize the construction of the precoder. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0011]    The present invention therefore provides a method for sending feedback reports in a wireless communication system, to improve the performance of downlink multiple-input multiple-output transmissions. 
         [0012]    A method of enhancing performance of downlink multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output transmissions in a wireless communication system comprising a communication device and a network is disclosed. The method comprises generating a feedback report comprising a correlation-based validity threshold (CVT); and transmitting the feedback report from the communication device to the network. 
         [0013]    A method of enhancing performance of downlink multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output transmissions in a wireless communication system comprising a communication device and a network is disclosed. The method comprises generating a feedback report comprising a compromised MU-CQI; and transmitting the feedback report from the communication device to the network. 
         [0014]    A communication apparatus for a wireless communication system is disclosed. The communication apparatus comprises a processing means; a storage unit; and a program code, stored in the storage unit, wherein the program code instructs the processing means to execute the following steps: generating a feedback report comprising a precoding matrix index (PMI), a best companion PMI (BCI), a multi -user channel quality indication (MU-CQI) and a correlation-based validity threshold (CVT); and transmitting the feedback report from a communication device to a network. 
         [0015]    A communication apparatus for a wireless communication system is disclosed. The communication apparatus comprises a processing means; a storage unit; and a program code, stored in the storage unit, wherein the program code instructs the processing means to execute the following steps: generating a feedback report comprising a compromised MU-CQI; and transmitting the feedback report from a communication device to a network. 
         [0016]    These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0017]      FIG. 1  is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system according to an example of the present invention. 
           [0018]      FIG. 2  is a schematic diagram of a communication apparatus according to an example of the present invention. 
           [0019]      FIG. 3  is a flowchart of a process according to an example of the present invention. 
           [0020]      FIG. 4  is a flowchart of a process according to an example of the present invention. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0021]    Please refer to  FIG. 1 , which is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system  10  according to an example of the present invention. The wireless communication system  10  is briefly composed of a network and a plurality of communication devices. In  FIG. 1 , the network and the communication devices are simply utilized for illustrating the structure of the wireless communication system  10 . Practically, the network can be a universal terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) comprising a plurality of Node-Bs (NBs) in a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS). Alternatively, the network can be an evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN) comprising a plurality of evolved NBs (eNBs) and/or relays in a long term evolution (LTE) system or a LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) system. 
         [0022]    Furthermore, the network can also include both the UTRAN/E-UTRAN and a core network, wherein the core network includes network entities such as Mobility Management Entity (MME), Serving Gateway (S-GW), Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW), Self-Organizing Networks (SON) server and/or Radio Network Controller (RNC), etc. In other words, after the network receives information transmitted by a communication device, the information may be processed only by the UTRAN/E-UTRAN and decisions corresponding to the information are made at the UTRAN/E-UTRAN. Alternatively, the UTRAN/E-UTRAN may forward the information to the core network, and the decisions corresponding to the information are made at the core network after the core network processes the information. Besides, the information can be processed by both the UTRAN/E-UTRAN and the core network, and the decisions are made after coordination and/or cooperation are performed by the UTRAN/E-UTRAN and the core network. 
         [0023]    The communication devices can be mobile communication devices such as user equipments for performing speech and data communication through the network such as the UMTS, the LTE system or the LTE-A system. Besides, the network and a communication device can be seen as a transmitter or a receiver according to transmission direction, e.g., for an uplink (UL), the communication device is the transmitter and the network is the receiver, and for a downlink (DL), the network is the transmitter and the communication device is the receiver. 
         [0024]    Please refer to  FIG. 2 , which is a schematic diagram of a communication apparatus  20  according to an example of the present invention. The communication apparatus  20  can be one of the communication devices shown in  FIG. 1 , such as a user equipment, but is not limited herein. The communication apparatus  20  may include a processing means  200  such as a microprocessor or Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a storage unit  210  and a communication interfacing unit  220 . The storage unit  210  may be any data storage device that can store a program code  214 , accessed and executed by the processing means  200 . Examples of the storage unit  210  include but are not limited to read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, random-access memory (RAM), CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, magnetic tape, hard disk and optical data storage device. The communication interfacing unit  220  is preferably a transceiver and is used to transmit and receive signals (e.g., messages or packets) according to processing results of the processing means  200 . 
         [0025]    Please refer to  FIG. 3 , which is a flowchart of a process  30  according to an example of the present invention. The process  30  is utilized in the wireless communication system  10  shown in  FIG. 1 , for sending a feedback report in one of the communication devices to enhance performance of downlink multi-user multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) transmissions from the network to the communication devices. The process  30  can be implemented in the communication apparatus  20  and may be compiled into the program code  214 . The process  30  includes the following steps: 
         [0026]    Step  300 : Start. 
         [0027]    Step  302 : Generate the feedback report comprising a precoding matrix index (PMI), a best companion PMI (BCI), a multi-user channel quality indication (MU-CQI) and a correlation-based validity threshold (CVT). 
         [0028]    Step  304 : Transmit the feedback report from the communication device to the network. 
         [0029]    Step  306 : End. 
         [0030]    According to the process  30 , the communication device generates the feedback report comprising the PMI, the BCI, the MU-CQI and the CVT and further transmits the feedback report to the network. Therefore, the network is able to perform appropriate modulation and coding scheme (MCS) selection and suitable mode selection from single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO) mode and multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) mode for the communication device, to enhance the performance of the downlink MIMO transmissions. 
         [0031]    In the process  30 , the MU-CQI may be derived from a CQI function of the PMI and the BCI, and the CVT may be derived from a CQI function of the PMI, the BCI and any other precoder in a codebook other than the BCI. For example, the MU-CQI can be determined by the following equations: 
         [0000]      ξ= q ( W   PMI   , W   BCI )= Q   CQI   {|hW   PMI | 2 /(| hW   BCI | 2 +σ 2 )}
 
         [0000]    wherein ξ denotes the MU-CQI, h denotes the spatial channel vector between a transmitter and a receiver, W PMI  denotes the PMI, W BCI  denotes the BCI, σ 2  denotes additive noise power, and Q CQI  denotes a specified function of quantization. In this regard, the CVT can be derived according to each of the following four algorithms:
   (A-1) The first algorithm can be represented by the following equations:   
 
         [0000]      ξ 1   =q ( W   PMI   , W   BCI );
 
         [0000]      ξ 2   =q ( W   PMI   , W   N     —     BCI );
 
         [0000]        c =arg min| W   BCI   *W   N     —     BCI |, subject to (ξ 1 −ξ 2 )≦Δξ, where Δξ≧0
 
         [0000]    wherein c denotes the CVT, W PMI  denotes the PMI, W BCI  denotes the BCI, W N     —     BCI  denotes the any other precoder in the codebook other than the BCI, Δξ denotes a pre-defined deviation value, * denotes the complex-conjugate operation, and the function q denotes a CQI function. Besides, the CQI function is determined as the following equations: 
         [0000]      ξ′= q ( W   PMI   , W   INTI )= Q   CQI   {|hW   PMI | 2 /(| hW   INTI | 2 +σ 2 )}
 
         [0000]    wherein ξ′ denotes the MU-CQI, h denotes the spatial channel vector between a transmitter and a receiver, W PMI  and W INTI  denote the precoders that filter the signal and interference (i.e. W PMI  is the PMI and W INTI  is the BCI or the any other precoder in the codebook other than the PMI herein), σ 2  denotes additive noise power, and Q CQI  denotes a specified function of quantization. 
         [0033]    In detail, the CVT c can be defined as the lowest cross-correlation between an entry of the codebook W N BCI  and the BCI W BCI  that retains the validity of MU-CQI or maintains the deviation of MU-CQI within the pre-defined deviation value Δξ. Therefore, the network can determine if the reported MU-CQI ξ is still valid according to the reported CVT c when the communication device is not paired with its favorite partner, and further decide to change the MCS or to switch between the SU-MIMO mode and the MU-MIMO mode in a precise manner.
   (A-2) The second algorithm can be represented by the following equations:   
 
         [0000]      ξ 1   =q ( W   PMI   , W   BCI );
 
         [0000]      ξ 2   =q ( W   N     —     PMI   , W   BCI );
 
         [0000]        c =arg min| W   PMI   *W   N     —     PMI |, subject to (ξ 1 −ξ 2 )≦Δξ, where Δξ≧0
 
         [0000]    wherein c denotes the CVT, W PMI  denotes the PMI, W BCI  denotes the BCI, W N     —     PMI  denotes the any other precoder in the codebook other than the PMI, Δξ denotes the pre-defined deviation value, * denotes the complex-conjugate operation, and the function q denotes the CQI function as shown above. 
         [0035]    In detail, the CVT c can be defined as the lowest cross-correlation between an entry of the codebook W N     —     PMI  and the PMI W PMI  that retains the validity or maintains the deviation within the pre-defined deviation value Δξ. Therefore, the network can determine if the reported MU-CQI ξ is still valid according to the reported CVT c when the communication device is paired without applying the reported PMI, and further decide to change the MCS or to switch between the SU-MIMO mode and the MU-MIMO mode in a precise manner.
   (A-3) The third algorithm can be represented by the following equations:   
 
         [0000]      ξ 1   =q ( W   PMI   , W   BCI );
 
         [0000]        c =arg min| W   BCI   *W   N     —     BCI |, subject to (ξ 0 −ξ 1 )≦Δξ, where Δξ≧0
 
         [0000]    wherein c denotes the CVT, W PMI  denotes the PMI, W BCI  denotes the BCI, W N     —     BCI  denotes the any other precoder in the codebook other than the BCI, ξ 0  denotes the CQI under single-user MIMO assumption (SU-CQI), Δξ denotes the pre-defined deviation value, * denotes the complex-conjugate operation, and the function q denotes the CQI function as shown above. 
         [0037]    In detail, the CVT c can be defined as the lowest cross-correlation between an entry of the codebook W N     —     BCI  and the BCI W BCI  that maintains the difference between the SU-CQI ξ 0  and the reported MU-CQI ξ within the pre-defined deviation value Δξ. Therefore, the network can determine the lower bound of compromising the reported BCI W BCI  that retains the motivation of MU-MIMO operation. In other words, the network can switch to the SU-MIMO mode if the lower bound is not fulfilled.
   (A-4) The fourth algorithm can be represented by the following equations:   
 
         [0000]      ξ 1   =q ( W   PMI   , W   BCI );
 
         [0000]        c =arg min| W   PMI   *W   N     —     PMI |, subject to (ξ 0 −ξ 1 )≦Δξ, where Δξ≧0
 
         [0000]    wherein c denotes the CVT, W PMI  denotes the PMI, W BCI  denotes the BCI, W N     —     PMI  denotes the any other precoder in the codebook other than the PMI, ξ 0  denotes the CQI under single-user MIMO assumption (SU-CQI), Δξ denotes the pre-defined deviation value, * denotes the complex-conjugate operation, and the function q denotes the CQI function as shown above. 
         [0039]    In detail, the CVT c can be defined as the lowest cross-correlation between an entry of the codebook W N     —     PMI  and the PMI W PMI  that maintains the difference between the SU-CQI ξ 0  and the reported MU-CQI ξ within the pre-defined deviation value Δξ. Therefore, the network can determine the lower bound of compromising the reported BCI W BCI  that retains the motivation of MU-MIMO operation. Besides, the network can switch to the SU-MIMO mode if the lower bound is not fulfilled. 
         [0040]    Note that, the process  30  is an example of the present invention, and those skilled in the art should readily make combinations, modifications and/or alterations on the abovementioned description and examples. For example, the transmission of the feedback report can be triggered automatically or triggered by the network via broadcast messages or other higher layer signaling. Besides, the feedback report can be carried in messages via high layer signaling, such as measurement reports. 
         [0041]    Please refer to  FIG. 4 , which is a flowchart of a process  40  according to an example of the present invention. The process  40  is utilized in the wireless communication system  10  shown in  FIG. 1 , for sending a feedback report in one of the communication devices to enhance performance of downlink MIMO transmissions from the network to the communication devices. The process  40  can be implemented in the communication apparatus  20  and may be compiled into the program code  214 . The process  40  includes the following steps: 
         [0042]    Step  400 : Start. 
         [0043]    Step  402 : Generate the feedback report comprising a precoding matrix index (PMI), a best companion PMI (BCI), a optimal multi-user channel quality indication (MU-CQI) and a compromised MU-CQI. 
         [0044]    Step  404 : Transmit the feedback report from the communication device to the network. 
         [0045]    Step  406 : End. 
         [0046]    According to the process  40 , the communication device generates the feedback report comprising the PMI, the BCI, the optimal MU-CQI and the compromised MU-CQI and further transmits the feedback report to the network. Therefore, the network is able to perform appropriate MCS selection and suitable mode selection from the SU-MIMO mode and the MU-MIMO mode for the communication devices, to enhance the performance of the downlink MIMO transmissions. 
         [0047]    The process  30  and the process  40  are similar. The difference between the process  30  and the process  40  is that the feedback report in the process  40  includes the compromised MU-CQI instead of the CVT in the process  30 . In detail, the optimal MU-CQI is derived from a CQI function of the PMI and the BCI, and the compromised MU-CQI is derived from a CQI function of the PMI, the BCI and any other precoder in a codebook other than the BCI. In other words, the derivation of the optimal MU-CQI is the same as that of the MU-CQI in the process  30 , and the compromised MU-CQI is derived according to each of the following two algorithms:
   (B-1) The first algorithm can be represented by the following equations:   
 
         [0000]        j *=arg min W   |W   PMI   *W   j |, subject to | W   BCI   *W   j   |≧r, W   j   ≠W   BCI    
         [0000]      ξ com   =q ( W   PMI   , W   j *);
 
         [0000]    wherein ξ com  denotes the compromised MU-CQI, W PMI  denotes the PMI, W BCI  denotes the BCI, j denotes the precoder entry index in the codebook, r denotes a cross-correlation threshold for the PMI, * denotes the complex-conjugate operation, and the function q denotes the CQI function as shown above. 
         [0049]    In detail, the communication device identifies a subset of precoders such that one precoder in the subset has a higher cross-correlation level with the reported PMI W PMI  than the cross-correlation threshold r. The communication device further calculates the lowest MU-CQI among all precoders in the subset, which is regarded as the compromised MU-CQI ξ com . In other words, the communication device provides the upper bound and the lower bound of the MU-CQI (i.e. the optimal MU-CQI ξ is the upper bound and the compromised MU-CQI ξ com  is the lower bound) for the network. Therefore, the network can choose suitable MCS even if the communication device is not paired with the reported BCI W BCI .
   (B-2) The second algorithm can be represented by the following equations:   
 
         [0000]        j *=arg min W   |W   j   *W   BMI |, subject to | W   PMI   *W   j   |≧r, W   j   ≠W   PMI    
         [0000]      ξ com   =q ( W   j   *, W   BCI );
 
         [0000]    wherein ξ com  denotes the compromised MU-CQI, W PMI  denotes the PMI, W BCI  denotes the BCI, j denotes the precoder entry index in the codebook, r denotes a cross-correlation threshold for the PMI, * denotes the complex-conjugate operation, and the function q denotes the CQI function as shown above. 
         [0051]    In detail, the communication device identifies a subset of precoders such that one precoder in the subset has a higher cross-correlation level with the reported BCI W BCI  than the cross-correlation threshold r. The communication device further calculates the lowest MU-CQI among all precoders in the subset as the compromised MU-CQI. In other words, the communication device provides the upper bound and the lower bound of the MU-CQI (i.e. the optimal MU-CQI ξ is the upper bound and the compromised MU-CQI ξ com  is the lower bound) for the network. Therefore, the network can choose suitable MCS even if the communication device is not paired with the reported PMI W PMI . 
         [0052]    Note that, the process  40  is an example of the present invention, and those skilled in the art should readily make combinations, modifications and/or alterations on the abovementioned description and examples. For example, the cross-correlation threshold r can be configured by the network such as using radio resource controller (RRC) messages, which can be broadcast messages or higher layer signaling. The cross-correlation threshold r can also be pre-defined in the specification of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standard. 
         [0053]    In the present invention, the communication devices provide feedback reports for the network so that the network can perform appropriate MCS selection and suitable mode selection from the SU-MIMO mode and the MU-MIMO mode for the communication devices. Therefore, the performance of the downlink MIMO transmissions can be improved. 
         [0054]    To sum up, the present invention provides a method for sending feedback reports from the communication devices to the network, to have the appropriate MCS selection and suitable mode selection from the SU-MIMO mode and the MU-MIMO mode for the communication devices, and further improve the performance of the downlink MIMO transmissions. 
         [0055]    Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention. Accordingly, the above disclosure should be construed as limited only by the metes and bounds of the appended claims.