Patent ID: 8472549

Claim:
A communication method used in a multi-antenna communication system, comprising: selecting one from a first group of candidate user equipments which are configured in a precoding transmission mode as a first user equipment, and selecting one from a second group of candidate user equipments which are configured in a diversity transmission mode as a second user equipment; determining a modulation mode to be used in hierarchical modulation, the number of transmission layers to be used in layer-mapping and a precoding matrix to be used in precoding, according to a first channel quality information, a precoding matrix information and the first number of transmission layers which are sent by the first user equipment, a second channel quality information and the second number of transmission layers which are sent by the second user equipment; generating a first symbol sequence from first source data to be sent to the first user equipment, according to the modulation mode and the number of transmission layers; generating a second symbol sequence from second source data to be sent to the second user equipment, according to the modulation mode and the number of transmission layers; hierarchically modulating the first and second symbol sequences according to the modulation mode, to generate a mixed symbol sequence; layer-mapping and precoding the mixed symbol sequence according to the precoding matrix and the number of transmission layers, to generate a transmission signal; and transmitting the transmission signal to the first and second user equipments and informing the second user equipment of the precoding matrix and the number of transmission layers.