Optimal Number of Users in Zero-Forcing Based Multiuser MIMO Systems With Large Number of Antennas 2013

362
JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS, VOL. 15, NO. 4, AUGUST 2013
Optimal Number of Users in Zero-Forcing Based

Multiuser MIMO Systems with Large Number of
Antennas
Minchae Jung, Younsun Kim, Juho Lee, and Sooyong Choi
Abstract: The optimal number of users achieving the maximum
sum throughput is analyzed in zero-forcing (ZF) based multiuser
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems with a large number of base station (BS) antennas. By utilizing deterministic ergodic
sum rates for the ZF-beamforming (ZF-BF) and ZF-receiver (ZFR) with a large number of BS antennas [1], [2], we can obtain the
ergodic sum throughputs for the ZF-BF and ZF-R for the uplink
and downlink frame structures, respectively. Then, we can also
formulate and solve the optimization problems maximizing the ergodic sum throughputs with respect to the number of users. This
paper shows that the approximate downlink sum throughput for
the ZF-BF is a concave function and the approximate uplink sum
throughput for the ZF-R is also a concave function in a feasible
range with respect to the number of users. The simulation results
verify the analyses and show that the derived numbers of users provide the maximum sum throughputs for the ZF-BF as well as ZF-R
in multiuser MIMO systems with a large number of BS antennas.
Index Terms: Large number of antennas, multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO), multiuser, zero-forcing beamforming (ZF-BF),
zero-forcing receiver (ZF-R).
I. INTRODUCTION
Multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems
have been proposed in order to achieve higher throughputs
within a limited radio spectrum [1][6]. In multiuser MIMO systems, users share the same resources and therefore the interference is one of the representative problems to overcome.
A zero-forcing (ZF) technique is one of the simplest strategies to eliminate the interference [3], [4]. By utilizing the precoder which is the inverse matrix of multiuser channel, the ZFbeamforming (ZF-BF) technique perfectly pre-cancels the interference at the transmitter [3]. On the other hand, the ZF-receiver
(ZF-R) post-cancels the interference at the receiver in a similar
way. Also it is well known that the ZF technique can achieve the
diversity order linearly proportional to the base station (BS) antennas [7], [8]. Therefore, the ZF technique a promising method
for a very large antenna arrays at the BS, which has recently
received a lot of attention [9][15].
Manuscript received February 15, 2013.
This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the
National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2012R1A1A2041906).
M. Jung and S. Choi are with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea, email:
{hosaly, csyong}@yonsei.ac.kr.
Y. Kim and J. Lee are with the DMC R&D Center, Samsung Electronics,
Suwon, Korea, email: {younsun, juho95.lee}@samsung.com
Digital object identifier 10.1109/JCN.2013.000067
Fig. 1. System model for ZF-BF and ZF-R based multiuser MIMO system.
In this paper, we analyze the multiuser MIMO systems with

a large number of BS antennas. For the multiuser MIMO systems with a large number of BS antennas, the system capacity is
asymptotically achieved by using simple maximum ratio combining (MRC)/ maximum ratio transmission (MRT) schemes for
infinite number of base station BS antennas [1]. However, for a
large and finite number of BS antennas, it is shown in [10] that
the ZF-BF is more efficient precoding scheme than the MRT for
the cell-center users. Therefore, we analyze the ZF techniques
which are the ZF-BF in downlink and ZF-R in uplink for the
multiuser MIMO systems with a large number of BS antennas
in this paper. From the mathematical analyses of the ZF techniques, an optimal numbers of users are analyzed to maximize
the ergodic sum throughputs. The optimal numbers of users can
be obtained by two steps. First, we derive the approximate ergodic sum throughputs for the uplink and downlink frame structures by using the well-known deterministic ergodic sum rates
for the ZF-BF and ZF-R from [1] and [2] in the multiuser MIMO
systems with a large number of BS antennas. In the second step,
we formulate the optimization problems to maximize the approximate sum throughputs with respect to the numbers of active users. By solving the optimization problems, we can derive
the optimal numbers of active users for the ZF-BF and ZF-R.
The remaining parts of this paper is organized as follows.
Section II introduces the description of the system model. In
Section III, we explain the uplink and downlink ergodic sum
rates for the multiuser MIMO systems with a large number of
BS antennas. Then, we analyze the optimal numbers of users
maximizing the approximate sum throughputs in Section IV.
Simulation results are provided in Section V. Finally, we con-
c 2013 KICS
1229-2370/13/$10.00
JUNG et al.: OPTIMAL NUMBER OF USERS IN ZERO-FORCING BASED MULTIUSER...
III. DETERMINISTIC ERGODIC SUM RATE
clude the paper in Section VI.

II. SYSTEM MODEL
We consider a frequency division duplexing (FDD) multiuser
MIMO system with M BS antennas and K users where each
user has a single antenna as shown in Fig. 1. The ZF-BF matrix

T T
WS = [w1 w2 wK ] and ZF-R matrix FS = f1T f2T fK
are used in downlink and uplink, where wk and fk are M 1 and
1 M vectors, respectively. Therefore, WS and FS matrices
have the sizes of M K and K M , respectively. In order
to apply the ZF techniques, it is assumed that the number of
BS antennas is greater than or equal to the number of users,
M K, as in [3]. It is also assumed that the channels from the
BS to the kth user, hk , and from the kth user to the BS, gk , have
zero-mean complex-Gaussian entries with variance 1/2 per each
dimension with the sizes of 1 M and M 1. Then, the total
channel matrices HS and GS are defined as
T

HS = hT1 hT2 hTK ,
GS = [g1 g2 gK ]
where HS and GS are K M and M K complex matrices, respectively and it is assumed that HS and GS are perfectly
known at the BS as in [4] and [6]. Then, the matrices for the
ZF-BF and ZF-R can be expressed as in [3] by

H 1
,
WS = (HS ) = HH
S HS HS
1 H
H
FS = (GS ) = GS GS
GS
where AH indicates the conjugate transpose of a matrix A. The

received signal at the kth user in the downlink, ykd , and the receive filter output for the kth user in the uplink, yku , are given
by
K
X
wk
ykd = hk xdk + hk
i=1,i6=k
yku = fk gk xuk + fk
K
X
363
xd
wi
xdi + nk = k + nk ,
gi xui + fk n = xuk + fk n
i=1,i6=k
where xdk and xuk denotepthe downlink and uplink transmitted
signals which are xdk = PBS /Ksdk and xuk = Pk suk , respectively. is the normalization factor for the ZF-BF precoder de2
fined as = kWS kF /K, where kAkF indicates the Frobenious
norm of a matrix A. PBS is the total transmit power at the BS
and Pk is the kth users uplink transmit power. It is assumed that
the uplink transmit power is equal to PUE for all users as in [2],
i.e., P1 = P2 = = PK = PUE . sdk and suk are the kth users
downlink and uplink signals, respectively, which are independent Gaussian distributed signals with zero mean and unit variance [3][6]. Also, nk and n are zero-mean complex-Gaussian
noise components with variance of N0 /2 for each dimension
where nk is a scalar and n is M 1 vector.
This section explains the ergodic sum rates for the ZF techniques in multiuser downlink and uplink systems with a large
number of antennas. The ergodic sum rate for a multiuser
MIMO system is given in [16] by
"K
#
X
C=E
log2 (1 + SINRk )
k=1
K
X
E [log2 (1 + SINRk )]
k=1
= KE [log2 (1 + SINRk )]
(1)
where SINRk is the signal to interference plus noise ratio

(SINR) for the kth users signal. For a small number of BS antennas, SINRk does not converge to a deterministic value. However, for a large number of BS antennas, SINRk can be approximated as a deterministic value. By using the random matrix theory, the authors in [1] and [2] derived the deterministic SINRs
for the ZF-BF and ZF-R, respectively in multiuser MIMO system with a large number of BS antennas. The detailed description begins with the following Lemmas.
Lemma 1 [1] : For the ZF-BF based multiuser MIMO downlink system with a large number of BS antennas, the SINR for
each user is identically approximate as PBS (M K) /(KN0 ).
Lemma 2 [2] : For the ZF-R based multiuser MIMO uplink
system with a large number of BS antennas, the SINR for each
user is identically approximate as PUE (M K) /N0 .
From (1), Lemma 1, and Lemma 2, the approximate ergodic
sum rates with a large M for the ZF-BF and ZF-R are given by

PBS M K
,
(2)
CZF-BF Klog2 1 +
N0
K

PUE
(M K) .
(3)
CZF-R Klog2 1 +
N0
When imperfect channel state information (CSI) at the BS is
considered, (2) and (3) are obtained as follows [1]
!
PBS
2
M K
CZF-BF Klog2 1 +
,
N0 (1 2 ) PN0 + 1 K
BS
!
PBS
2
(M K)
CZF-R Klog2 1 +
N0 (1 2 ) PN0 + 1
BS
where 0 1 represents the channel reliability. The channel reliability does not depends on the number of users but
depends on the number of pilots and the transmit power of the
pilot signal (or the number of feedback bits and the number of
BS antennas) [17]. Therefore, in this paper, we assumed the perfect CSI at the BS, = 1, for the simple analysis.
IV. ANALYSIS OF OPTIMAL NUMBER OF USERS FOR
MAXIMUM SUM THROUGHPUT
In this section, we present the approximate ergodic sum
throughputs considering the uplink and downlink frame structures and analyze the optimal numbers of users maximizing the
364
approximate sum throughputs for the ZF-BF and ZF-R. We consider an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
cellular system with FDD mode and assume that the channel
response in frequency domain is constant over Nsmooth subcarfrequency
Nsymb
Nsmooth
Tslot
Fig. 2. Downlink frame structure for OFDM based multiuser system.
riers as in [9]. The system bandwidth is 2B in Hz and equally

allocated in the uplink and downlink. Also the equal power allocation scheme for the data frame is assumed.
where d is the downlink target SINR. Therefore, we can formulate an optimization problem as given by

KBTu
PBS M K
M
(P1) max
1
log2 1 +
K
Ts
NSS
N0
K
PBS M K
s.t.
d .
(7)
N0
K
To maximize the objective function of (P1) with respect to
K, we need to verify the concavity of the function with respect
to K. For the number of users K, the second derivative of the
objective function of (P1) is given by

2
PBS M
BTu
M
1
2
Ts
NSS
N0
Rd
=
(8)
2 < 0.

2
K
K ln 2 PNBS0 (M K) + K
The second derivative of the objective function of (P1) is always negative and therefore the objective function of (P1) is
concave with respect to K. By letting the first derivative of the
objective function be zero, we can obtain the maximizer K
given as
PBS
M
= 1,
if
e
N0
M
PBS
(9)
K =
else
1

PBS N0 1 +
PBS N0
LW
A. ZF-BF Based Multiuser MIMO Downlink System

For the downlink in multiuser communication systems, the
BS sends the pilot signals to the receivers in order to estimate
the downlink channel state information at receiver (CSIR) as
shown in Fig. 2. Nsmooth indicates the frequency interval where
the channel response is flat. Therefore, the BS sends a pilot signal in a single subcarrier per a transmit antenna over Nsmooth
subcarriers. Then, the ergodic sum throughput of the ZF-BF can
be represented in [9] by
"
#

K
X
BTu
M
Rd = E
1
log2 (1 + SINRk )
Ts
NSS
k=1
#

"X
K
M
BTu
1
E
log2 (1 + SINRk )
=
Ts
NSS
where LW (X) is the Lambert-W function. Y = LW (X) is the

solution to Y eY = X [18]. The constraint (7) can be calculated
as K PBS M /(PBS + d N0 ). Finally, the optimal solution
for (P1) can be given by

PBS M
Kopt = min K ,
.
(10)
PBS + d N0
We can observe that the optimal number of users for the ZFBF linearly increases as the number of BS antenna increases in
(9). Also, we can achieve the maximum ergodic sum throughput
in the downlink multiuser MIMO system with the ZF-BF from
the optimal solution of (10).
A.1 Theoretical Analysis: ZF-BF Based Ergodic Sum Rate
(4)
k=1
where NSS = Nsymb Nsmooth , B is the downlink system bandwidth in Hz, Tu and Ts are the effective symbol duration and the
OFDM symbol interval, respectively, and Nsymb is the number of
OFDM symbols in a time slot. From (2), (4) can be represented
by

KBTu
M
PBS M K
Rd
. (5)
1
log2 1 +
Ts
NSS
N0
K
Then, we can formulate an optimization problem for Rd with
respect to the number of users K. Since the received SINR obtained from Lemma 1 should be greater than or equal to the target SINR, we have a constraint as given by
PBS M K
d
N0
K
eN0
(6)
In this section, we analyze the ergodic sum rate of the ZFBF instead of the sum throughput without consideration of the
OFDM frame structure for the theoretical analysis. The ergodic
sum rate of the ZF-BF is given as (2). Then, the second derivative of (2) is given as follows

2
PBS M
2
N0
CZFBF
=
2 < 0.

K 2
PBS
K ln 2 N0 (M K) + K
Since the second derivative is always negative, (2) is concave

with respect to K. By letting the first derivative of (2) be zero,
and finally obtain the optimal
we can obtain the maximizer K
opt , which are given as
solution K
PBS
M
= 1,
if
e
N0
M
PBS
(11)
K =
else.
1

N
1
+
BS
0
PBS N0
LW
eN0
365
the downlink case, we have the constraint given by

frequency
PUE
(M K) u
N0
frequency
Downlink frame
where u is the uplink target SINR. Therefore, we can formulate

an optimization problem for Ru as

K
PUE
KBTu
(M K)
1
log2 1 +
(P2) max
K
Ts
NSS
N0
PUE
(M K) u .
(14)
s.t.
N0
Downlink frame
Nsymb
K
B
Tslot
User 1
time
User 2
frequency
time
frequency
Downlink frame
Downlink frame
: Pilot
: Data
: Blank
User 3
time
User 4
time
Fig. 3. Uplink frame structure for OFDM based multiuser system when
K = 4.
Kopt = min K ,
PBS M
PBS + d N0
(13)
Since the numerical factors from the downlink OFDM frame

structure does not depend on the number of users K, the optimal
numbers of users for the maximum ergodic throughput in (9) and
the maximum ergodic sum rate in (11) are equal.
B. ZF-R Based Multiuser MIMO Uplink System
In the uplink multiuser MIMO systems, the users transmit signals to the BS using the same resources and the BS receives the
signals which are the sum of all users uplink signals. In order
to decode each users uplink signal, the ZF-R filter is utilized at
the BS. In order to apply the ZF-R filter, the BS should know the
uplink channels using the uplink pilots. Since all users within a
cell share the same time-frequency resources in multiuser uplink systems [9], the uplink pilots for each user should be assigned to the dedicated time-frequency index in order to estimate the CSIR accurately as shown in Fig. 3. To prevent the loss
of data rate due to the overhead from the pilot signals, we consider the number of users K as the number of subcarriers to be
used for the uplink pilots as shown in Fig. 3. Then, the ergodic
sum throughput based on the ZF-R can be represented by
#
"K

X BTu
K
1
log2 (1 + SINRk )
Ru = E
Ts
NSS
k=1

(a) KBTu
K
PUE
1
log2 1 +
(M K) (12)
Ts
NSS
N0
where (a) results from (3). Since the received SINR in Lemma
2 also should be greater than or equal to the target SINR as in
Lemma 3: The approximate sum throughput based on the ZFR is a concave function for 0 K < NSS /2 and a monotonically decreasing function for NSS /2 K NSS in the feasible
range.
Proof: The detailed proof is presented in Appendix.
2
From Lemma 3, we can obtain the maximizer K by letting
the first derivative of the objective function of (P2) be zero as
given by

(k)
NSS
K = k|LW ( (k)) =
(15)
,0 k <
(k)
2
UE (NSS k)
where (k) = kP
N0 (NSS 2k) . Also, the constraint in (14) can
be easily calculated by K M N0 u /PUE . In conclusion,
the optimal solution for (P2) is given by

N0
(16)
u .
Kopt = min K , M
PUE
The optimal number of users for the ZF-BF linearly increases

as the number of BS antenna increases. However, we can observe in (15) that the optimal number of users for the ZF-R does
not linearly increases as the number of BS antenna increases.
From the optimal solution of (16), we can achieve the maximum
ergodic sum throughput in the uplink multiuser MIMO system
with the ZF-R.
B.1 Theoretical Analysis: ZF-R Based Ergodic Sum Rate
In this section, we analyze the ergodic sum rate of the ZFR instead of the sum throughput without consideration of the
OFDM frame structure for the theoretical analysis. The ergodic
sum rate of the ZF-R is given as in (3). Then, the second derivative of (3) is given as follows

PUE
PUE
(2M
K)
+
2
2
N0
N0
CZFR
=
2 < 0.

K 2
PUE
ln 2 1 + N0 (M K)
Since the second derivative is always negative, (3) is concave
with respect to K. By letting the first derivative of (3) be zero,
and finally obtain the optimal
we can obtain the maximizer K
solution Kopt , which are given as
PUE
1
+
M
N
0
= M +
1
,
N0
K
PUE
M
LW e 1 + PNUE
0

opt = min K
, M N 0 u .
(17)
K
PUE
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Table 1. Simulation parameters.
Value
System bandwidth (2B)
20 MHz
Number of BS antennas (M )
50
Transmit SNR
( PNBS0 , PNUE0 )
PBS /N0 = 0 dB
PBS /N0 = 3 dB
PBS /N0 = 6 dB
3.5
3 dB
3
2.5
Target SINR (d , u )
0 dB
Coherence time
500 us
Time duration for a time slot (Tslot )
500 us
Symbol interval (Ts )
71.4 us
0.5
Useful symbol duration (Tu )
66.7 us
Frequency flat interval (Nsmooth )
14 subcarriers [9]
# of OFDM symbols in a time slot
7 OFDM symbols
2
1.5
1
: Maximum Point
(Nsymb )
# of OFDM symbols for uplink
x 10
Ergodic sum throughput (bps)
Parameter
4.5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Number of users (K)
Fig. 4. Simulation result for ergodic sum throughput versus the number
of users for a ZF-BF based multiuser MIMO downlink system.
3 OFDM symbols [9]
pilots (Npilot )
x 10
10
PUE /N0 = 0 dB
PUE /N0 = 3 dB
1.8
V. SIMULATION RESULTS
This section evaluates the ergodic sum throughputs based on
the optimal numbers of users given in (10) and (16). For all
results, Monte carlo simulations are performed and spatially uncorrelated MIMO channels which have independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) zero-mean complex-Gaussian entries
with variance 1/2 per each dimension are considered. The ergodic sum throughputs for the optimum numbers of users using (10) and (16) and using the maximum numbers of users
are denoted as optimum K and maximum K, respectively. The
maximum K selects the users as many as possible under the
constraints. In order to satisfy the downlink target SINR as
given in (6), the maximum K should satisfy the constraint
PBS (M K)/(N0 K) d in the downlink case. Then, the
number of selected users for the maximum K in the downlink
case is given by
d
Kmax
=
PBS M
.
PBS + d N0
(18)
PUE /N0 = 6 dB
In the uplink case, since the number of subcarriers for the

data signal depends on the number of users K as shown
in Fig. 3, the optimal numbers of users for maximum ergodic throughput in (15) and the maximum ergodic sum
rate in (17) are different unlike the downlink case. Also,
the first derivative of (15) with respect to M is given
as LW (e (1 + u M )) / (1 + LW (e (1 + u M ))) and it converges to 1 as M increases. Therefore, (15) linearly increases
for M in a large number of BS antenna system. By comparing
the optimal numbers of users for the downlink and uplink cases
in (11) and (17), respectively, it is observed that the both optimal numbers of users for the ZF-BF and ZF-R linearly increase
as M increases. From these results, we conclude that the multiuser MIMO system with a large number of BS antennas can
support infinite number of users both in the ZF-BF and ZF-R
with infinite M .
1.6
1.4
1.2
0.8
0.6
: Maximum Point
0.4
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Number of users (K)
Fig. 5. Simulation result for ergodic sum throughput versus the number
of users for a ZF-R based multiuser MIMO uplink system.
In the uplink for the maximum K, the number of uplink pilots is limited by the predetermined number of OFDM symbols
Npilot as in [9]. Also, the received SINR should satisfy the constraint of (13). Then, the maximum K determines the number
of users in the uplink case as given by

N0
u
Kmax = min M
u , N p
(19)
PUE
where Np = Nsmooth Npilot is the predetermined number of subcarriers for the pilots. It is assumed that 3 OFDM symbols are
assigned for the uplink pilots, Npilot = 3, and Nsmooth = 14 as
in [9]. Therefore, Np = 14 3 = 42 subcarriers are used for
the uplink pilots. The simulation parameters are based on 3GPP
long term evolution (LTE) [19] as shown in Table 1. From the
simulation results, we show the ergodic sum throughputs with
respect to the number of users, signal to noise ratio (SNR), and
the number of BS antennas.
Figs. 4 and 5 show the ergodic sum throughputs versus the
number of users for the ZF-BF and ZF-R based multiuser
MIMO systems, respectively. The ergodic sum throughput in
Fig. 4 is a concave function as proved in (8) and therefore
there is a optimal point maximizing the ergodic sum throughput
367
x 10
K from E.S.
PBS /N0 = 0 dB (Fig. 4)
18.4
18
PBS /N0 = 3 dB (Fig. 4)
21.8
22
PBS /N0 = 6 dB (Fig. 4)
25.1
25
PUE /N0 = 0 dB (Fig. 5)
31.2
31
PUE /N0 = 3 dB (Fig. 5)
32.5
33
PUE /N0 = 6 dB (Fig. 5)
33.6
34
95
K from (10), (16)
Optimum K (simulation)
Optimum K (estimation)
Maximum K (simulation)
Maximum K (estimation)
85
75
4
65
Maximum K
Ergodic sum throughput
55
45
2
35
Optimum K
Number of selected users (K)
Table 2. Numerical results.
1
25
Number of selected users

0
15
10
Transmit SNR (dB)
Fig. 6. Simulation results for ergodic sum throughput and the number
of selected users versus transmit SNR for a ZF-BF based multiuser
MIMO downlink system.
x 10
10
60
2.25

55
50
Optimum K
1.75
45
1.5
40
Maximum K
1.25
2.5
with respect to K. From Lemma 3, the ergodic sum throughput for the uplink ZF-R is a concave function in the range of
0 K < NSS /2 = 49. Therefore, we can observe that the
ergodic sum throughput in Fig. 5 is also a concave function and
the maximum point also exists. The numerical results for the
maximum points of the ergodic sum throughputs from (10) and
(16) are presented in Table. 2. In Table. 2, E.S. indicates exhaustive search. As shown in Table. 2, we observe that the optimal
numbers of users in (10) and (16) are similar as those from the
exhaustive search.
In Figs. 69, we compare the ergodic sum throughputs and
the numbers of selected users for the derived optimum K with
the maximum K. The results of Monte carlo simulations are
marked as simulation and results of (2) and (3) are marked as
estimation. That is, the results of simulation are obtained by using the actual ZF techniques as described in Section II and the
results of estimation are plotted by using (2) and (3) with K values of optimum K and maximum K. Fig. 6 shows the ergodic
sum throughputs and the numbers of selected users with respect to the transmit SNR for the ZF-BF based multiuser MIMO
downlink system. In Fig. 6, it is observed that the ergodic sum
throughputs and the numbers of selected users increase as the
transmit SNR increases. We also observe that the ergodic sum
throughput of the optimum K is always better than that of maximum K over the transmit SNR. Although the number of selected
users for the maximum K is larger than that of the optimum K
as shown in Fig. 6, the ergodic sum throughput of the optimum
K always outperforms that of the maximum K.
Fig. 7 shows the ergodic sum throughputs and the numbers
of selected users with respect to the transmit SNR for the ZFR based multiuser MIMO uplink system. We observe that the
ergodic sum throughputs linearly increase as the transmit SNR
increases. It is also observed in Fig. 7 that the number of selected
users for the optimum K increase as the transmit SNR increases.
However, the number of selected users for the maximum K does
not change and always equal to 42 with respect to the transmit
SNR. From (19), M u N0 /PUE = 49.5 and Np = 42, and
u
therefore Kmax
is always 42 for all transmit SNR regions. The
ergodic sum throughput of the optimum K also outperforms that
of the maximum K over the transmit SNRs.
Figs. 8 and 9 show the ergodic sum throughputs and the numbers of selected users for the ZF-BF and ZF-R schemes with
respect to the number of BS antennas. As the number of BS
antennas increases, the received SINR of the ZF-BF linearly increases. However, since the number of pilots equals to the number of BS antennas as shown in Fig. 2, the number of subcarriers
35

1
30
10
Transmit SNR (dB)
Fig. 7. Simulation results for ergodic sum throughput and the number
of selected users versus transmit SNR for a ZF-R based multiuser
MIMO uplink system.
for the data signals decreases as the number of BS antennas increases. Therefore, we observe in Fig. 8 that the ergodic sum
throughput of the ZF-BF increases until M = 50 and decreases
after M = 50. Also, as shown in the downlink frame structure
in Fig. 2, the number of pilots in the downlink frame is not related to the number of users K. On the other hand, the number
of pilots in the uplink frame should be equal to the number of
users as shown in Fig. 3. That is, the resources for the uplink data
signals depend on the number of users. Therefore, the number
of selected users for the optimum K in Fig. 8 linearly increases
as the number of BS antennas increases whereas the optimum
K in Fig. 9 does not increases linearly. As the number of BS
antennas increases, the performance gap between the optimum
K and maximum K in Fig. 8 approaches zero since 1 M/NSS
in (5) approaches zero. The performance gap between the optimum K and maximum K in Fig. 9 also approaches zero as the
number of BS antennas increases. As previously noted in subsection IV.B, the optimal number of users for the ZF-R linearly
increases as the number of BS antennas increases within large
368
100
2.5
90
80
70

60
1.5
50
Maximum K
40
1
30
Optimum K
20
0.5

0
VI. CONCLUSION
x 10
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
10
90
Number of BS antennas (M)
Fig. 8. Simulation results for ergodic sum throughput and the number of
selected users versus the number of BS antennas for a ZF-BF based
multiuser MIMO downlink system.
x 10
10
90
70

1.5
Optimum K
60
50
40
1
30
0.5
20
40
60
20
10
Maximum K
0
APPENDIX
80
2.5
The optimal numbers of users for the ZF-BF and ZF-R techniques are analyzed in multiuser MIMO systems with a large
number of antennas. By utilizing the property of a large number
of BS antennas and the deterministic sum rates for the ZF techniques, we analyzed the approximate sum throughputs for the
uplink and downlink frame structures. We formulated the optimization problems maximizing the approximate ergodic sum
throughputs with respect to the number of users and solved the
optimization problems by using the concavities of the problems. From the simulation results, it is observed that the approximate ergodic sum throughputs perform close to the ergodic
sum throughputs based on Monte Carlo simulation. Also, we observed that the derived numbers of users achieve the maximum
ergodic sum throughputs resulting from the comparison with the
exhaustive search. Moreover, the approximate sum throughput
for the optimal number of users always outperforms that of the
maximum K which determines the number of users as many as
possible.
80
0
100
Number of BS antennas (M)
Fig. 9. Simulation results for ergodic sum throughput and the number of
selected users versus the number of BS antennas for a ZF-R based
multiuser MIMO uplink system.
M regions. However, the ergodic throughput of the ZF-R does

not linearly increase for the number of BS antennas since the
uplink data signals related to the ergodic throughput depend on
the number of users. In case of the maximum K, the number
of selected users is restricted by the predetermined number of
subcarriers for the uplink pilots, Np = 42, from (19). Therefore, the number of selected users for the maximum K does not
change when M > 40 as shown in Fig. 9. The number of selected users for the optimum K approaches 42 as the number of
BS antennas increases from 0 to 80 as shown in Fig. 9. Therefore
the performance gap between the optimum K and maximum K
approaches zero as the number of BS antennas increases from 0
to 80 and gradually increases when the number of BS antennas
is larger than 80.
It can be commonly observed in Figs. 69 that the approximate ergodic sum throughputs in (5) and (12) perform close to
the ergodic sum throughputs obtained by Monte carlo simulations. Also, it is observed that the ergodic sum throughputs of
the optimum K always outperform the maximum K with respect to the SNR and the number of BS antennas.
A. Proof of Lemma 3
In order to obtain the monotonically decreasing region of the
sum throughput for K, we need to verify the first derivative of
the approximate sum throughput for the ZF-R. The first derivative of the function (12) is given by

KPUE
(N
2K)
ln
(K)
(N
K)
BT
SS
SS
u
(K)N0
Ru
=
K
Ts NSS ln 2
(20)
where (K) = PNUE0 (M K) + 1. In order to obtain the decreasing region of the sum throughput for K, it is necessary to
derive the negative region of (20) for K. The negative region of
(20) is obtained as
KPUE
(NSS K) 0
(K) N0
(b)
KPUE
NSS 2K
(NSS K) .
(K) N0 ln (K)
(NSS 2K) ln (K)
(21)
In order to apply the ZF-R filter, it is assumed that K M and

therefore (K) 1. (b) in (21) results from ln (K) 0.
Also, K should be less than or equal to NSS as shown in Fig. 3.
Then, NSS K is always non-negative. Therefore, the right
hand side (RHS) of (21) is also non-negative. If NSS 2K 0,
the left hand side (LHS) of (21) is non-positive and therefore
(21) always holds. Therefore, it is proved that the approximate
sum throughput based on the ZF-R is a monotonically decreasing function for NSS /2 K NSS .
To analyze the concavity of the approximate sum throughput
based on the ZF-R for 0 K < NSS /2, the second derivative
of the function should be calculated. If the second derivative of
the function is negative for 0 K < NSS /2, the function is
concave for the region. The second derivative of the function is
calculated by
!
PUE f (K)
BTu
2 Ru
2 ln
(22)
=
K 2
Ts NSS ln 2 N0 (K)2

2
UE
where f (K) = 3P
N0 K + (NSS PUE /N0 + 4) K 2NSS
and = M PUE /N0 + 1. Therefore, (22) is negative if f (K)
0 for 0 K < NSS /2. The values of f (0) = 2NSS and
2
f N2SS = PUE NSS
/4N0 are negative. Since the function
f (K) is a concave quadratic function with respect to K, it is
important to see whether the maximal point of f (K) is in the
range of 0 K < NSS /2 or not. The maximal point of f (K)
can be obtained at
= NSS PUE + 4N0 .

K
6PUE
(23)

Since (23) is always positive, we obtain the condition for K
NSS /2 as given by

NSS
N0
N0
.
(24)
M NSS 2 M +
2
PUE
PUE
Since we consider a large number of antennas at the BS, the condition (24) is practically reasonable. Finally, it is proved that the
approximate sum throughput of the ZF-R is a concave function
for 0 K < NSS /2 in the feasible range of (24).
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Minchae Jung was born in Seoul, Korea in 1985.

He received the B.S. degree from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University,
Seoul, Korea in 2008. He is currently working toward
the Ph.D. degree at the same university. His primary
research area is on multiuser MIMO systems with a
large number of antennas (a.k.a. massive MIMO or
large scale MIMO) and hot topics in wireless communication systems such as cognitive radio networks
and D2D communications.
Younsun Kim received B.S. and M.S. degrees in

Electronic Engineering from Yonsei University, Korea, and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from
University of Washington in 1996, 1999, and 2009,
respectively. He joined Samsung Electronics in 1999
and has since been working on the standardization of
wireless communication systems such as cdma2000,
HRPD, and recently LTE/LTE-A. His research interests include multiple access schemes, coordination
schemes, multiple antenna techniques, and advanced
receivers for next generation systems.
Juho Lee received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea in 1993, 1995, and 2000, respectively. He joined
Samsung Electronics in 2000 and has been working on standardization of mobile communications
such as WCDMA, HSDPA, HUSPA, LTE, and LTEAdvanced. He was a Vice Chairman of TSG RAN
WG1 during February 2003 through August 2009 and
is currently the Rapporteur for the 3GPP LTE Rel-11
CoMP work item.
Sooyong Choi was born in Seoul, Korea in 1971. He

received the B.S.E.E, M.S.E.E., and Ph.D. degrees
from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea in 1995, 1997,
and 2001, respectively. During 2001, he worked as a
Post-Doc. Researcher at the IT Research Group, Yonsei University. His work focused on proposing and
planning for the 4th generation communication system. From February 2002 to August 2004, he had been
a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of California, San
Diego. From September 2004 to July 2005, he had
been a Researcher and Research Assistant Professor at
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. From September 2005 to August 2011,
he had been an Assistant Professor in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University. Since September 2011, he has been an Associate
Professor in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University. His primary research area is on adaptive signal processing techniques
for digital communication and storage systems, interference cancellation techniques (equalization and detection) and MIMO detection techniques for wireless
communication, and modem techniques for future wireless communication systems.

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JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS, VOL. 15, NO. 4, AUGUST 2013