MIMO Relay Networks: Scheduling and Outage Probability

We study a dual-hop multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relay network where the traffic source uses a relay node, selected among several possible ones, to serve multiple users. Considering that the nodes deployment can be described by Poisson point processes in a sector area, we derive the distribution of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio over the two communication hops. Then, assuming that the user to be served is selected according to opportunistic, proportional fair, or selective multiuser diversity scheduling, we investigate the system outage probability, and derive a closed-form tight lower bound for it. Our analysis provides useful guidelines on the system design of MIMO relay networks. Unlike existing works, our analysis accounts for the joint impact of various multiuser scheduling schemes and nodes placement.