Diversity-Multiplexing-Nulling Trade-Off Analysis of Multiuser MIMO System for Intercell Interference Coordination

A fundamental performance trade-off of multicell multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems is explored for achieving intercell and intracell interference-free conditions. In particular, we analyze the three-dimensional diversity-multiplexing-nulling trade-off (DMNT) among the diversity order (i.e., the slope of the error performance curve), multiplexing order (i.e., the number of users that are simultaneously served by MU-MIMO), and nulling order (i.e., the number of users with zero interference in a victim cell). This trade-off quantifies the performance of MU-MIMO in terms of its diversity and multiplexing order, while nulling the intercell interference toward the victim cell in the neighbor. First, we design a precoding matrix to mitigate both intercell and intracell interference for a linear precoding-based MU-MIMO system. Then, the trade-off relationship is obtained by analyzing the distribution of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the user terminals. Furthermore, we demonstrate how DMNT can be applied to estimate the long-term throughput for each mobile station, which allows for determining the optimal number of multiplexing order and throughput loss due to the interference nulling.