2018 IEEE 19th International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC)
User Scheduling in Massive MIMO
Hong Yang
Bell Laboratories, Nokia, 600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA
h.yang@nokia-bell-labs.com
Abstract—Massive MIMO relies on nearly orthogonal user
channels to achieve unprecedented spectral efficiency. But in
LoS (line-of-sight) environment, some users can be subjected
to similar channel vectors. Serving users with similar channel
vectors simultaneously can severely compromise the throughput
performance to all users. We propose a scheduler that identifies
users with similar channels and serves them in separate time slots
with properly assigned data rates, while aiming to provide fair
service to all users and maximize the system spectral efficiency
at the same time. Simulation results show the effectiveness of
the scheduler on both downlink and uplink of a single cell
Massive MIMO with MR (maximum ratio) processing or ZF
(zero-forcing) processing, and that channel correlation threshold
for scheduling users is an important design parameter that can
be fine-tuned to optimize the user throughput performance.
Index Terms—Massive MIMO, scheduler, line-of-sight, power
control.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Scheduler design, both in physical and application layers,
has been an important research area for the past and current
generations of multi-user wireless technologies. For exam-
ple, for multi-user MIMO (multiple-input/multiple-output), [1]
considered downlink scheduling with equal power for the
scheduled users; [2] extended proportional fair scheduling
for the uplink operation; [3] studied the scheduling problem,
taking into account the requirements from both physical and
application layers; [4] derived capacity achieving scheduling
algorithms for zero-forcing beamforming as the number of
users tended to infinity; [5] investigated user scheduling to
mitigate pilot contamination in Massive MIMO [6] [7]; [8]
explored the benefits of multi-user precoding for millimeter
wave MIMO systems. However, so far there has been little
research in the physical layer scheduler design for Massive
MIMO, a core wireless technology for 5G. We believe that this
disparity is mainly due to: (1) with precision beamforming of
Massive MIMO, max-min power control can be used to deliver
equal throughput to all users [9]; (2) traditional proportional
fair scheduler, which takes advantage of small-scale channel
variation to schedule users during up fade, provides little
benefit in increasing system spectral efficiency due to channel
hardening [10] in Massive MIMO.
But there are situations where a physical layer scheduler is
necessary for Massive MIMO. For example, in predominantly
LoS (line-of-sight) environment, with non-negligible probabil-
ity some users can experience similar channel fading [11]. In
such a case, the channel matrix becomes nearly singular. The
result is a severe degradation in fairness and/or system spectral
efficiency if all the users are served in the same coherence
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interval [11], [12]. A solution to this problem is to serve users
with similar channels separately in different coherence time
slots. To successfully realize this solution one needs:
• An effective and simple mechanism to quickly identify
users with similar channels;
• An effective and simple scheduler to schedule users with
similar channels to serve in separate coherence slots, and
with proper rate assignment to each user.
The mechanisms for these two tasks must be simple so it
can be done fast, within the coherence time of the system,
which is typically in the order of milliseconds for mobile
networks. Additionally, the scheduler should maximize the
spectral efficiency as much as possible. An algorithm was
proposed in [11] for determining which users should be
dropped from service so that the user throughput would not
be compromised for the remaining users. But how do we
provide a fair service to all users and maximize the total
spectral efficiency? We propose an answer to this question
in this paper. The proposed scheduler does not depend on
the precoding/decoding schemes, and is applicable to both
downlink and uplink. We evaluate the performance of the
scheduler on MR (maximum ratio) and ZF (zero-forcing)
precoding/decoding schemes via extensive simulations.
II. M ASSIVE MIMO IN L O S
We assume a single-cell Massive MIMO with an M -
antenna array base station which serves K simultaneous and
autonomous users.
A. Effective SINR
Let
G = (g1 · · · gK ) ∈ CM ×K
be the M ×K channel matrix between the M -antenna array at
the base station and the autonomous K users, where gk ∈ CM
is the channel vector between the M -antenna array at the base
station and the kth user, k = 1, · · · , K.
Effective SINR for MR processing and ZF processing have
been derived in [11], [13] and are summarized in Table I.
In Table I, [A]k,k denotes the kth diagonal element of a
matrix A and superscript H denotes conjugate transpose. Let
R0+ denotes the set of all nonnegative real numbers.
η = (η1 , · · · , ηK )T ∈ RK
0+
is the downlink power control vector with total power con-
straint
η1 ≤ 1,
 2018 IEEE 19th International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC)

TABLE I has a solution η̆ ∈ RK

0+ that satisfies η̆∞ ≤ 1. The uplink
E FFECTIVE SINR power control is given by η̆. Here
Maximum Ratio Zero-Forcing
Λ̆ = diag(g1 −2 −2
2 , · · · , gK 2 )Λdiag(g1 2 , · · · , gK 2 ),
2 2
gk 22 ρd ηk ρd η k  
Downlink T
 |gH gl |2 K
 b̆1 = s̆1 g1 −2 −2 −2
2 , s̆2 g2 2 , · · · , s̆K gK 2 ,
1 + ρd ηl k 2 [(GH G)−1 ]l,l ηl
gl 2
l=k l=1 and Λ is given in (2).
gk 22 ρu η̆k ρu η̆k Proof: Rewrite the MR uplink SINR from Table I as (3).
Uplink ρu  [(GH G)−1 ]k,k
1+
gk 22 l=k
η̆l |gkH gl |2 Solve (3) for η̆. If η̆ ∈ RK 0+ satisfies η̆∞ ≤ 1, then we have
found a power control that meets the SINR target. Otherwise
the SINR target cannot be met. 
3) Downlink Power Control for ZF Processing:
and Theorem 2.3: For ZF processing, a downlink target SINR
η̆ = (η̆1 , · · · , η̆K )T ∈ RK
0+ vector s = (s1 , · · · , sK )T ∈ RK0+ can be met if and only if
K

is the uplink power control vector with individual power
constraint ρd ≥ sk [(GH G)−1 ]k,k (4)
k=1
η̆∞ ≤ 1.
and the corresponding downlink power control is given by
η = αs
B. Power Controls to Meet Target SINR
K
With scheduling, some users will be served in fewer slots where α ≤ 1/ k=1 sk .
than others. It may be desirable to serve those users with Proof: From Table I, we have
higher rates. In order to be able to assign different target SINR K

to different users, we need to find power controls that can meet ηk = sk ρ−1
d [(GH G)−1 ]l,l ηl = sk α, k = 1, · · · , K,
a given target SINR requirement given by a vector in RK 0+ .
l=1

For two channel vectors gk and gl , we define the channel where α does not depend on k. Since downlink power con-
correlation as straint requires η1 ≤ 1, we have
 
 gk gl  |gkH gl | K
 K

γk,l =  , = .
gk 2 gl 2  gk 2 gl 2 1 ≥ η1 = ηk = α sk .
k=1 k=1
1) Downlink Power Control for MR Processing: K
Thus α ≤ 1/ k=1 sk . In particular, we can choose α =
Theorem 2.1: For MR processing, a downlink target SINR K
1/ k=1 sk . We see that to meet or exceed the target SINR,
vector s = (s1 , · · · , sK )T ∈ RK
0+ can be met if and only if
we must have
[IK − diag(s1 , · · · , sK )Λ] η = ρ−1 ρd η k
d b1 (1) K ≥ sk , k = 1, · · · , K. (5)
−1 ] η
l=1 [(G G)
H
l,l l
where
⎛ ⎞ With ηk = αsk we see that (5) becomes
0 γ1,2
2
··· γ1,K
2
K
⎜ γ2,1 ⎟ 
⎜
2
0 ··· ⎟ γ2,K
2
ρd ≥ [(GH G)−1 ]k,k sk
Λ =⎜ . .. .. ⎟ .. (2)
⎝ .. . . ⎠ . k=1

γK,1
2
γK,2
2
··· 0 which is a necessary and sufficient condition that the target
 
−2 T SINR requirement (s1 , · · · , sK )T can be met. 
b1 = s1 g1 −2 −2
2 , s2 g2 2 , · · · , sK gK 2 4) Uplink Power Control for ZF Processing:
has a solution η ∈ RK Theorem 2.4: For ZF processing, an uplink target SINR
0+ that satisfies η1 ≤ 1. The downlink
power control is given by η. vector s̆ = (s̆1 , · · · , s̆K )T ∈ RK
0+ can be met if and only if

Proof: Rewrite the MR downlink SINR from Table I as (1). ρu ≥ max s̆k [(GH G)−1 ]k,k (6)
k=1,··· ,K
Solve (1) for η. If η ∈ RK 0+ satisfies η1 ≤ 1, then we have
found a power control that meets the SINR target. Otherwise and the corresponding downlink power control is given by
the SINR target cannot be met. 
η̆k = s̆k ρ−1
u [(G G)
H −1
]k,k , k = 1, · · · , K.
2) Uplink Power Control for MR Processing:
Theorem 2.2: For MR processing, an uplink target SINR Proof: From Table I, we have
vector s̆ = (s̆1 , · · · , s̆K )T ∈ RK0+ can be met if and only if
η̆k = s̆k ρ−1
u [(G G)
H −1
]k,k ≤ 1, k = 1, · · · , K.

IK − diag(s̆1 , · · · , s̆K )Λ̆ η̆ = ρ−1
u b̆1 (3) Thus s̆k [(GH G)−1 ]k,k ≤ ρu , k = 1, · · · , K. 

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 2018 IEEE 19th International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC)
Remark 2.5: From Theorems 2.3 and 2.4, the power controls
for ZF processing are given explicitly in terms of the SINR
requirement. For MR processing, however, the power controls
are given implicitly as the solution to a linear system, as
stated in Theorems 2.1 and 2.2. If there is a “one-parameter”
SINR target, i.e., the SINR requirement for the K users can
be parametrized by a single parameter: sk = sk (δ), s̆k =
s̆k (δ̆), k = 1, · · · , K, then bisection searches can be car-
ried out to find the optimal parameter δ  and δ̆  such that
mink {sk (δ)} and mink {s̆k (δ̆)} are maximized. The SINR’s
for calculating the throughputs in the numerical examples in
Section IV are obtained this way.  that includes i1 as follows:
III. A N A LGORITHM FOR S CHEDULING U SERS
Motivated by the results in [13], where it has been shown
that the effective SINR’s are upper bounded by decreasing
functions of the maximal channel correlation, we devise a
scheduler algorithm in the following.
The algorithm is to divide the K users into groups such
that correlation between users in each group is upper bounded
Algorithm 3.3: Construction of a maximal feasible grouping:
Given a K × K hollow symmetric matrix Γ = [γi,j ] with
γi,j ∈ [0, 1], ∀i, j, and a correlation threshold γh , let γmax =
maxi,j {γi,j }.
1) If γmax ≤ γh , then we have a unique maximal feasible
grouping, which has only one element: K1 = K. Done.
2) If γmax > γh , find all the columns in Γ with all its entries
≤ γh . Denote the set of the column indices for these
columns as K0 . Let K0c = K\K0 = ∅ (See Remark 3.5).
Continue.
3) Randomly pick an i1 ∈ K0c . Construct a user set K(i1 )
a) Let {i1 } → K(i1 ) , i.e., add i1 to K(i1 ) .
b) Let L(i1 ) = {k ∈ K : γk,j ≤ γh , ∀j ∈ K(i1 ) }. If
L(i1 ) = ∅, randomly pick k ∈ L(i1 ) and add it to
K(i1 ) . Repeat until L(i1 ) = ∅ (See Remark 3.6).
c) Let K(i1 ) ∪ K0 → K(i1 ) , i.e., set K(i1 ) as K(i1 ) ∪ K0 .
4) Randomly pick i2 ∈ K\K(i1 ) (see Remark 3.7), and con-
struct a user set K(i2 ) as in Step 3). If K(i1 ) ∪ K(i2 ) = K,
done. Otherwise, randomly pick i3 ∈ K\[K(i1 ) ∪ K(i2 ) ].
by a given threshold and that each group has a maximum Construct a new user set: K(i3 ) as in Step 3).
number of users (i.e., adding any users into the group will  n−1
5) In general,
 if K\
cause the maximum correlation in that group to exceed the
given threshold) – this is to multiplex as many users as possible
in each time slot.
More precisely, given a K × K hollow (i.e., diagonal
elements are all equal to zero) symmetric matrix Γ = [γi,j ],
let K = {1, · · · , K}. we would like to find J distinct subsets
Kj ⊂ K such that γk1 ,k2 ≤ γh for any k1 , k2 ∈ Kj , j =
1, · · · , J and
J
K= Kj .
j=1
We shall call the quadruple (Γ, K, {K1 , · · · , KJ }, γh ) a feasi-
ble grouping.
To achieve maximum multi-user multiplexing gain, we
would like each subset Kj to contain as many elements as
possible. Thus, we make the following definition.
Definition 3.1: A maximal feasible grouping is a feasible
grouping such that K1 = K or for any k ∈ K\Kj , there exists
a k1 ∈ Kj such that γk,k1 > γh .
Remark 3.2: Obviously, the maximal feasible grouping may
not be unique. For example, for K = {1, 2, 3, 4},
⎛ ⎞
0 0.7 0.1 0.2
⎜ 0.7 0 0.3 0.4 ⎟
Γ=⎜ ⎝ 0.1 0.3 0 0.6 ⎠
⎟ therefore should be served with the lowest rate. In general, if
0.2 0.4 0.6 0
and γh = 0.5. Let K1 = {1, 3}, K2 = {2, 4} and K1 =
{1, 4}, K2 = {2, 3}. Then we have many different maxi-
mal feasible groupings. For example, {K1 , K2 }, {K1 , K2 },
{K1 , K2 , K2 }, ..., are all maximal feasible groupings. Thus
the number of subsets in a maximal feasible grouping is also
not unique.  where SINRJ/J is the SINR for the users who are served all
Below is an algorithm for finding a maximal feasible
grouping.
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 ∪ j=1 K(ij ) = ∅, randomly pick in ∈
K\ ∪n−1 K
j=1 (ij ) =
 ∅ and construct a new user set K(in )
as in Step 3. Repeat until the union of user sets equals
K.
Remark 3.4: K0 is the set of indices of the users whose
channel correlations do not exceed γh . Every set Ki in a
maximal feasible grouping must include K0 , although it is
possible that K0 = ∅. In the example given in Remark 3.2,
we have K0 = ∅. 
Remark 3.5: If γmax > γh , some of the columns of Γ will
have entries that are > γh , i.e., K0 is a proper subset of K. 
Remark 3.6: The set L(i1 ) depends on K(i1 ) . 
Remark 3.7: K\K(i1 ) cannot be empty because if γi1 ,i2 >
γh , then i2 ∈ K\K(i1 ) . 
A. SINR for Long-Term Equal Throughput
Since some users will be served by all time slots while
others will have to take turns to be served, the users that are
not served by all time slots will need to be served with a
higher rate in order for all users to have the same long-term
data rate. In the following, we shall calculate the required
SINR for those users.
Let J be the number of groups obtained from Algorithm 3.3.
If a user belongs to all groups, it is served all the time and
a user belongs to j groups, meaning that out of every J slots,
the user is served only in j slots, to achieve equal throughput
J log2 (1 + SINRJ/J ) = j log2 (1 + SINRj/J )
we need to have
SINRj/J = (1 + SINRJ/J )J/j − 1
the time, and SINRj/J is the SINR for the users who is served
in j slot in every J slots.
 2018 IEEE 19th International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC)

If all the users are served with the same SINR, then for a
user who is served only j (≤ J) times in every J slots with
SINRj/J , it is equivalent that the user is served with
SINRJ/J = (1 + SINRj/J )j/J − 1
in every slot.
Remark 3.8: In the above calculations, we have not taken
into account that each user group may have a different
number of users. Under similar channel conditions, groups
with fewer users can usually achieve a higher common SINR.
Under different channel conditions, even groups with the same
number of users will have different common SINR. Due to
channel hardening in Massive MIMO, this variation is evident
only in the slow fading scale. Inclusion of this variation in the
scheduler may possibly be realized with the results in [13]. 
Let
sk = SINRjk /J = (1 + SINRJ/J )J/jk − 1 (7) Fig. 1. MR downlink max-min per user rate comparison for different
schedulers. M = 256, K = 18, ρd = −3 dB, ρu = −20 dB. In the legend:
where jk is the number of slots that the kth user is served in 1st number is the correlation threshold, 2nd number indicates the scheduler
used: 1=Equal throughput; 2=Equal rate per slot. NS = No Scheduling
every J slots. Theorems 2.1 and 2.2 can be used in conjunction
with bisection method to search for the largest downlink
(respectively uplink) SINRJ/J that satisfies the downlink •Base station service antenna gain = 0 dBi
(respectively uplink) power constraints for MR processing. •Base station receiver noise figure = 9 dB
For ZF processing, (4) and (6) can be used to search for the • Mobile antenna gain = 0 dBi
largest achievable downlink and uplink SINRJ/J . • Mobile receiver noise figure = 9 dB
Note that (7) is a “one-parameter” parametrization of sk we compute
with parameter SINRJ/J . See Remark 2.5.
ρd β = 132 dB − 135 dB = −3 dB
IV. N UMERICAL R ESULTS
ρu β = 115 dB − 135 dB = −20 dB
Numerical examples of the scheduler performance are pro-
vided in this section. In the simulations, the service antennas are arranged in a
Assume there are M service antennas at the base station circular array with half-λ (carrier frequency wavelength) arc
and K simultaneous users. The channel vector in LoS for the separation. Using Algorithm 3.3 to group users for service in
kth user is given by each coherence time slot, Figs. 1 and 2 show the CDF (cu-
  2π 2π 2π
T mulative distribution function) of max-min per user effective
gk = βk ei λ r1,k , ei λ r2,k , · · · , ei λ rM,k throughput with MR processing, while Figs. 3 and 4 show the
 2π
 2π 2π
T corresponding CDF’s for ZF processing. The performance of
= βk ei λ r1,k 1, ei λ (r2,k −r1,k ) · · · , ei λ (rM,k −r1,k ) two schedulers with different levels of correlation thresholds
are shown. The two schedulers are
where βk models the large-scale fading, and rm,k is the
Euclidean distance between the mth service antenna and the 1) Scheduler 1: Equal throughput scheduler with target
kth user terminal. SINR described in Section III-A;
Calculation of ρd and ρu : Assuming a suburban morphol- 2) Scheduler 2: Equal rate per slot scheduler with a common
ogy, with 1.9 GHz carrier frequency, 2 km cell radius, 32 m SINR for all users served in the slot.
base station antenna height, and 1.5 m mobile antenna height. In the plots, in the case when Scheduler 2 is used, the user
COST231 propagation model predicts an over-the-air path loss rate is adjusted downward accordingly if a user is not served
of 135 dB. We shall assume the worst case that all the users are by every slot.
at the cell edge, i.e., we have βk ≡ −135 dB, k = 1, · · · , K.
Note that if βk varies from user to user, a lower rate may A. Discussions
be caused by either high channel correlation or small βk . We provide some discussions on the simulation results.
By assuming constant β for all users, lower rate can only • In both downlink and uplink, both MR and ZF processing,
be caused by high channel correlation. we see that scheduling can substantially improve the user
Along with the following assumptions: throughput performance, in both the median throughput
• M = 256, K = 18 and the 90% likely throughput.
• Base station radiated power = 10 W • Scheduler 2 clearly outperforms “No Scheduling” due to
• Mobile radiated power = 200 mW 1) smaller channel correlations among users served in

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 2018 IEEE 19th International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC)

6FKHGXOHU&RPSDULVRQ058SOLQN each slot; 2) fewer users are served in each slot. Although

16
Scheduler 1 also has these two same advantages over “No
  Scheduling”, it however requires a small number of users

  who are not served in every slot to be served with x times
 higher rate than majority of users. The result is often a
 
 lower median throughput.
 
• For uplink, Scheduler 2 is clearly preferred. Scheduler
3UREDELOLW\



 1 performs poorly due to mobile power limitation. To

 require a certain mobile to deliver x times throughput


of other mobiles, the other mobiles must decrease their
 throughput to satisfy the requirement.
 • For ZF processing, downlink performs quite well even
with up to 95% channel correlation.

• Using 90% likely throughput as the performance indica-

          
tor, Scheduler 2 in conjunction with 0.4 as the channel
3HU8VHU6SHFWUDO(IILFLHQF\EV+] correlation threshold (blue dashed curves) works well in
Fig. 2. Same as Fig. 1, for MR uplink
Fig. 3. Same as Fig. 1, for ZF downlink
Fig. 4. Same as Fig. 1, for ZF uplink
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all four cases: downlink and uplink, MR and ZF.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
A scheduler is necessary when operating a Massive MIMO
in LoS environment. We have proposed a simple scheduler to
properly assign data rates to users, serve users with similar
channel vectors in separate coherence time slot, while aiming
for fairness and maximal system spectral efficiency. Simula-
tions have shown the effectiveness of the proposed scheduler
for both downlink and uplink, and for both MR and ZF.
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