Method and apparatus for allocating uplink resources in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system

A method for scheduling data transmission for a plurality of terminals in a wireless communication system, comprising:

• forming one or more sets of terminals for possible transmission on a channel, wherein each set includes a unique combination of terminals and corresponds to a hypothesis to be evaluated;
• forming one or more orderings of the terminals in each set, wherein each terminal ordering corresponds to a sub-hypothesis to be evaluated;
• evaluating performance of each sub-hypothesis;
• selecting one of the plurality of evaluated sub-hypotheses based on their performance;
• and
• scheduling the terminals in the selected sub-hypothesis for data transmission on the channel, and
• wherein signals transmitted from the scheduled terminals are processed in an order defined by the selected sub-hypothesis.

A multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, comprising:

• a base station comprising
• a plurality of front-end processors configured to process a plurality of signals received from a plurality of terminals to provide a plurality of symbol streams,
• at least one receive processor coupled to the front-end processors and configured to process the symbol streams in accordance with a successive cancellation receiver processing scheme to provide a plurality of decoded data streams, and to further derive channel state information (CSI) indicative of channel estimates for the plurality of terminals,
• a scheduler configured to receive the CSI, select a set of one or more terminals for data transmission on an uplink, assign a particular order of processing for the one or more selected terminals, and provide a schedule for the one or more selected terminals and their transmission parameters, and
• a transmit data processor operatively coupled to the receive processor and configured to process the schedule for transmission to the one or more selected terminals;
• and
• one or more terminals, each terminal comprising
• at least one demodulator configured to receive and process one or more signals from the base station to recover the transmitted schedule, and
• a transmit data processor configured to adaptively process data for transmission to the base station based on the transmission parameters for the terminal included in the recovered schedule.

A base station in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, comprising:

• a plurality of front-end processors configured to process a plurality of signals received from a plurality of terminals to provide a plurality of received symbol streams;
• at least one receive processor coupled to the front-end processors and configured to process the received symbol streams to provide a plurality of decoded data streams and to derive channel state information (CSI) associated with the decoded data stream;
• a scheduler configured to receive the CSI, select a set of one or more terminals for data transmission on the uplink and provide a schedule for the one or more selected terminals and a set of one or more transmission parameters for each selected terminal;
• and
• a transmit processor configured to receive and process the schedule for transmission to the plurality of terminals, and
• wherein the one or more data streams from each scheduled terminal are adaptively processed prior to transmission based in part on the transmission parameters for the terminal included in the schedule.

A base station in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, comprising:

• a plurality of front-end processors configured to process a plurality of signals received from a plurality of terminals to provide a plurality of received symbol streams;
• at least one receive processor coupled to the front-end processors and configured to process the received symbol streams to provide a plurality of decoded data streams, each receive processor including a plurality of processing stages, each stage configured to process input symbol streams to provide a respective decoded data stream and derive channel state information (CSI) associated with the decoded data stream;
• a scheduler configured to receive the CSI, select a set of one or more terminals for data transmission on the uplink, assign a particular order of processing for the one or more selected terminals, and provide a schedule for the one or more selected terminals and a set of one or more transmission parameters for each selected terminal;
• and
• a transmit processor configured to receive and process the schedule for transmission to the plurality of terminals, and
• wherein the one or more data streams from each selected terminal are adaptively processed prior to transmission based in part on the set of one or more transmission parameters for the selected terminal.

A terminal in a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system, comprising:

• at least one front-end processor configured to process at least one received signal to provide at least one received symbol stream;
• at least one receive processor coupled to the at least one front-end processor and configured to process the at least one received symbol stream to recover a schedule for the terminal, wherein the schedule include an indication of a particular time interval in which the terminal is scheduled for data transmission and a set of one or more transmission parameters to be used by the terminal for the data transmission;
• a transmit processor configured to receive and adaptively process data for transmission in accordance with the set of one or more transmission parameters, and
• wherein the terminal is one of one or more terminals included in a set scheduled for data transmission in the particular time interval, and wherein the set of one or more terminals scheduled for data transmission is selected from among one or more sets of terminals based on performance evaluated for each set.