Patent ID: 8078212

Claim:
A method operated by a base station in a multi-user multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) communication system, comprising: calculating an average power among a plurality of users in the MU-MIMO system based upon a total power for the base station to communicate with the plurality of users, wherein the base station communicates with each user of the plurality of users via a spatial stream assigned to the each user; determining a power increment for the each user based upon at least one of a fairness algorithm and a throughput algorithm, wherein if the power increment is determined based upon the throughput algorithm, then determining the power increment based upon the following equation: MaxSum_C = ∑ i N ⁢ f i ⁡ ( ( P ⁢ / ⁢ N + Δ ⁢ ⁢ P i I i + σ i 2 ) , ⁢ while ⁢ ⁢ ∑ i N ⁢ ( P ⁢ / ⁢ N + Δ ⁢ ⁢ P i ) ≤ P wherein, MaxSum_C represents a maximum of a throughput sum C, i represents an i th user, N represents a number of the plurality of users, P represents the total power, I i represents an interference for the i th user, σ i represents a white noise for the i th user, ƒ i ( ) represents a throughput function, and ΔP i represents the power increment for the i th user; and allocating a power to the each user based upon the average power and the power increment, wherein different users of the plurality of users having different long-term signal to interference plus noise ratios (SINRs) are allocated with different powers.