Randomly-Directional Beamforming in Millimeter-Wave Multi-User MISO Downlink

Abstract: In this paper, randomly-directional beamforming (RDB) is considered for millimeter-wave (mmwave) multi-user (MU) multiple-input single-output (MISO) downlink systems. By using asymptotic techniques, the performance of RDB and the MU gain in mm-wave MISO are analyzed based on the uniform random line-of-sight (UR-LoS) channel model suitable for highly directional mm-wave radio propagation channels. It is shown that there exists a transition point on the number of users relative to the number of antenna elements for non-trivial performance of the RDB scheme, and furthermore sum rate scaling arbitrarily close to linear scaling with respect to the number of antenna elements can be achieved under the UR-LoS channel model by opportunistic random beamforming with proper user scheduling if the number of users increases linearly with respect to the number of antenna elements. The provided results yield insights into the most effective beamforming and scheduling choices for mm-wave MU-MISO in various operating conditions. Simulation results validate our analysis based on asymptotic techniques for finite cases.