Multiple-Antenna Channel Hardening and Its Implications for Rate Feedback and Scheduling

Wireless data traffic is expected to grow over the next few years and the technologies that will provide data services are still being debated. One possibility is to use multiple antennas at base stations and terminals to get very high spectral efficiencies in rich scattering environments. Such multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) channels can then be used in conjunction with scheduling and rate-feedback algorithms to further increase channel throughput. This paper provides an analysis of the expected gains due to scheduling and bits needed for rate feedback. Our analysis requires an accurate approximation of the distribution of the MIMO channel mutual information. Because the exact distribution of the mutual…