Improved downlink performance of transmit adaptive array with limited feedback channel rate by applying transmit antenna selection

Transmit adaptive array requires the forward link channel state for evaluating the optimum transmit weight in which a feedback channel transports the forward link channel state to the base station. Since the feedback information limits the transmission rate of the reverse link traffic, it is necessary to keep the number of feedback bits to a minimum. This paper presents a system in which the N transmit antennas are extended to the 2N transmit antennas while the feedback channel is limited as that of N-transmit antenna system. The increased antennas can give additional diversity gain but requires higher rate of feedback bits. The limited feedback channel increases the quantization error of feedback information since the number of feedback bits assigned to each antenna is reduced. In order to overcome the limited rate of feedback channel problem, this paper proposes the transmit antenna selection schemes which can effectively use the limited feedback bits, reduce the computational complexity at the mobile station, and eventually achieve diversity gain. System performances are investigated for the case of N = 4 for the various antenna selection schemes on both flat fading and multi-path fading channels.