Waterfilling Power Allocation Applied in Block-
Diagonalization Multi-User MIMO Precoding
Technique
Victor-Florin Crâșmariu, Marius-Octavian Arvinte,
Andrei-Alexandru Enescu
Digital Networking
NXP Semiconductors
Bucharest, Romania
victor-florin.crasmariu@nxp.com
Abstract—Next generation of mobile communications (5G)
comes with high throughput demands (up to more than 10 Gbps).
From a radio access point of view, this requires using spatial
multiplexing techniques that allow reaching these rates and are
suitable for cases where the transmitter has a large number of
antennas. The challenges are even bigger when it comes to
spatially multiplexing multiple mobile stations in the same time-
frequency resource, a technique known as MU-MIMO (Multi-
User MIMO).
The Block Diagonalization technique shows a strong
performance in MU-MIMO scenarios by eliminating the inter-
user interference. This method also presents good flexibility in
terms of intra-user and inter-user transmission energy allocation.
This paper analyzes the performances – in terms of sum-
capacity – of the downlink Block Diagonalization MU-MIMO
technique when paired with the waterfilling power allocation
mechanism. The use cases considered in the performed
simulations are aligned to those considered in the 5G networks:
up to 128 transmit antennas at the base station side, up to 64
mobile users spatially multiplexed and up to 16 antennas for each
mobile station.
Keywords—Massive MIMO, BD, Precoding, MU-MIMO
I. INTRODUCTION
The future generation of mobile communications
(commercially dubbed 5G) targets increased throughput, low
latency and a large number of simultaneously connected
devices. This latter requirement is even more important when
considering the scarce amount of spectrum available for future
use.
In this sense, performing spatial multiplexing of users in a
MIMO scenario in order to increase the achieved spectral
efficiency is proven a very well suited solution, and scaling the
current spatial multiplexing techniques to a 5G scenario is
currently a topic of great interest [1]. However, in the downlink
transmission of a multi-user scenario (MU-MIMO) the main
source of error in the system is the inter-user interference, and
schemes that cancel it without the need for a collaborative
detection [2] have to be found. These methods fall into the
category of base station precoding and generally rely on known
CSI (Channel State Information).
One such precoding method that cancels the inter-user
interference is ZF (Zero-Forcing) beamforming [3], which uses
978-1-5090-3748-3/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Silviu Ciochină, Member, IEEE
Telecommunications Department
University Politehnica of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania
the Moore-Penrose inverse of the channel matrix as a precoding
matrix. This method eliminates not only the inter-user
interference, but also the intra-user interference for those users
that have more than one data stream transmitted to them and
also allows for a reduced complexity user terminal.
However, this type of precoding forces equal signal-to-noise
ratios among all the antennas of all the users, thus leading to
sub-optimal performances [4] and reduced flexibility in
adjusting the received power levels for individual users, in
other words enforcing a fair allocation of transmit powers.
In contrast with ZF precoding, the SVD (Singular Value
Decomposition) method has complete flexibility when it comes
to power allocations and exhibits a larger capacity even with a
fair power allocation [5]. However, the SVD precoding is only
suitable in practice for single-user scenarios, due to otherwise
requiring collaborative detection at the user side.
The BD (Block-Diagonalization) precoding [6]-[10] is a
type of precoding designed specifically for a multi-user
scenario and, in contrast with the ZF method, its purpose is
eliminating only the inter-user interference, effectively
decomposing a MU-MIMO system in multiple, parallel SU-
MIMO ones. Once BD has been performed, the base station can
perform SVD precoding and modify the power allocation for
each user.
The waterfilling power allocation [5] consists in increasing
the transmission power for the streams that experience better
channel conditions and can be performed either on a per-user
basis or jointly for all users in order to maximize the overall
capacity, with the price of an unfair power allocation.
This paper studies the performance of the BD scheme when
coupled with a waterfilling power allocation performed jointly
across all users, in a 5G-like multi-user Massive-MIMO
scenario [11].
The first section of the paper is an introduction to the topic of
research, describing the general scenario considered, the
problem of inter-user interference that arises and presents the
BD precoding and waterfilling power allocation as ways to
increase the overall capacity. The second section contains a
brief summary of the MU-MIMO system model considered, as
well as notations used throughout the paper. The third section
describes the BD technique and the SVD (Singular Value
Decomposition) precoding method that is applied for each
virtually created link generated after performing the BD
precoding. The fourth section introduces the waterfilling power
allocation method, which is used for an optimal choice of
transmission power in order to maximize the capacity. The fifth
and the final section presents the obtained simulation results
when using the BD precoding coupled with two variations of
the waterfilling power allocation in a Massive-MIMO scenario.
II. MU-MIMO SYSTEM MODEL
The downlink MU-MIMO system that is used is depicted in
Figure 1.The model consists of a base station and K mobile
stations. Denoted with nt is the number of antennas that the base
station possesses. One particularity of the MIMO system used
in this paper is that the base station has a large number of
antennas (Massive MIMO), with nt equals to 32, 64 or 128
antennas or above.
Each of the K mobile stations has nr,i antennas and nr
denotes the summed receive antennas of all of the K users.
method, which is shown to be a suitable and scalable method
for a Massive-MIMO system [6].
Contrary to the ZF beamforming method, which is a
classical technique that eliminates both the inter-user and intra-
user interference (the interference that appears between the
antennas of the same user), the BD technique aims to eliminate
only the inter-user interference.
Let PBD be the BD precoding matrix and He as the
equivalent channel matrix that is virtually created after applying
the BD precoding matrix,
H e = HPBD (2)
In other words, it can be said that PBD leads to zero values
on the elements corresponding to inter-user interference of the
He matrix.
Another observation is that H e can be viewed as being
formed from a set of block-matrices consisting of non-zero
elements and positioned along the main diagonal, while all the
other elements are zero. The total number of blocks is equal to
the number of mobile stations, K,

H e ,1 
 0 
 H e ,2 
He =  . (3)
  
 0 
 H e,K 

Figure 1. Representation of a multi-user MIMO system.
The MIMO equation used in this paper is given in the (1)
and corresponds to a narrowband, flat-fading, time-invariant
channel affected by AWGN (Additive, White, Gaussian Noise).
This mathematical model is hence restricted to the coherence
time and bandwidth of the system and it can be easily
generalized with various technologies for any type of mobile
and fading channel.
y = Hx + n,
where:
x is the nt × 1 vector of symbols that are transmitted over
the nt base station antennas.
y is the nr × 1 vector of symbols that are received on each
antenna of each of the K users.
n is the nr × 1 vector that represents the AWGN on each
receive antenna.
H is the nr × nt matrix representing the MIMO channel
matrix.
III. BD-SVD PRECODING TECHNIQUE
It has been proven [7] that PBD can be found within the
vectors that form the null spaces of a family of matrices derived
from H, each such matrix corresponding to a mobile station.
Each block within the He matrix can be considered as an
equivalent channel matrix that characterizes the communication
between the base station and a single user. Over each such
channel, a SU-MIMO communication can be performed. Also,
a classical MIMO technique (such as ZF, SVD, etc.) can be
applied.
In this paper, SVD precoding implemented by the base
station for each of the virtually created SU-MIMO links has
(1) been considered.
The SVD decomposition for each block within the He
matrix is
H
H e,i = U i Σ i Vi . (4)
where:
Ui – A nr,i × nr,i unitary matrix.
Vi – A nl,i × nl,i unitary matrix, where nl,i represents the
number of data layers associated to i-th user.
Σi – A nr,i × nl,i diagonal matrix with the main diagonal
elements equal to λ1 ≥ λ 2 ≥ ... ≥ λ n , real numbers that
min

The problem of collaborative detection at the receiver side represent the singular values of the H matrix.
can be mitigated by eliminating the inter-user interference. e ,i
This technique ensures that each user will only receive the It is denoted
signals that carry the information intended to it. One such
technique is the Block-Diagonalization (BD) beamforming
 V1 σ n – AWGN noise power.
 0  λi – the singular value associated to the i-th layer.
V2
PSVD =  (5) wi – the transmission power allocated to the i-th layer.
  
 0  It is shown [5] that the capacity (either for the entire system,
 VK  or for each user individually) is maximized when

σn
as the matrix that prepares the data symbols for SVD λi + = constant, for all i. (8)
decomposition that is to be applied for each block within the wi
H e matrix.
To reach this solution one can start from (7) together with
the constraint that the sum of the wi coefficients must be
IV. WATERFILLING POWER ALLOCATION METHOD bounded by the total power budget and solve the multi-
The SVD decomposition opens up the possibility of dimensional extrema problem with the well-known Lagrange
enforcing a power allocation policy, in which each individual multiplier method, which leads to the following expression:
symbol meant for transmission is allocated a different power. In
this paper, the waterfilling power allocation method has been
Pt 1 Nl
σn σn
considered.
Regarding how the waterfilling coefficients are chosen, two
wi = +
Nl Nl
λ
j =1
2
−
λi2
, (9)
j
different optimization criteria have been studied that concern
the capacity function that is being maximized: where Pt represents the total power constraint and Nl represents
i) Across all users simultaneously (system) by using the the number of symbols intended for MIMO transmission.
singular values of the equivalent channel matrix He. This leads In the case that one or more of the wi coefficients is
to an unfair power allocation that will favor some users over negative, the lowest one of them is set to zero, meaning that this
others, possibly even cancelling out completely some others in certain layer is not transmitted, and the solution is computed
the process. again for the rest of the coefficients.
ii) Per individual user by using the singular values of
each equivalent channel He,i and assuming that the total
transmit power constraint is the same for all users. This leads to V. SIMULATION RESULTS
a fair power allocation.
In both cases, the power weighting factors can be expressed Simulations have been performed in order to investigate the
as block-matrices of the global prescaling matrix that will be capacity gain obtained from combining the BD precoding with
applied directly to the transmitted symbols, defined as: the waterfilling power allocation using both optimization
criteria (system and per user).
In order to measure the achievable end-to-end performance,
 Λ1
0 
the sum of the capacities of each user’s equivalent MIMO
 Λ2
channel is used, where the capacity of the i-th user can be
expressed as:
Λ= , (6)
  
 0  nl ,i
 λ j(i ) (i ) 
 ΛK  Ci [bps / Hz ] =  log 2 1 + w j , (10)
 σ 
j =1  n 
where Λ i is a diagonal matrix with diagonal elements that
represent the power adjustment coefficients for the i-th user. where:
The Λ matrix multiplies the data symbol vector before λ (j i ) – the singular value of the j-th layer, i-th user.
applying the subsequent precoding matrices for BD and SVD. (i )
The waterfilling power allocation policy aims to maximize w j – the power allocated to the j-th layer, i-th user.
the sum capacity for a multi-channel system that is under a total The simulated scenario is a flat-fading (either single-carrier
transmit power constraint. In case of a MIMO communication or a subcarrier in an OFDM system) and time-invariant one in
system, for which SVD technique is used as a MIMO which we have used the Rayleigh model for generating the
transmission method, the capacity is written as: coefficients of the H matrix.
Furthermore, following the BD, SVD and waterfilling
Nl
 λ2  precoding, the transmit antenna vector is scaled such that the
C[bps / Hz ] =  log 2 1 + i wi , (7) entire power budget is used for transmission.
i =1  σn 
where:

Figure 1. The capacity offered by the two types of waterfilling performed
together with the BD precoding as a function of SNR.
Figure 1 shows the obtained capacity for both waterfilling
methods in a scenario with Nl = Nt = Nr = 128 in which the
transmitted layers and receive antennas are equally distributed
among Nu = 32 users. It can be seen that the capacity gain
exhibited in this case by the system waterfilling is much higher
than in the case when it is performed on individual users. This
occurs because no optimization of the total available
transmission power per user has been done. Such an
optimization would have resulted in a type of hybrid
waterfilling (the extreme case being the system waterfilling).
While the performance gain of the per-user waterfilling is
smaller than that of the system waterfilling, the unfair power
allocation is impractical when it leads to one of the users being
completely cancelled in order to increase the overall capacity.
Thus, both methods have their practical use in different channel
conditions.
Figure 2 shows the performance of the waterfilling
performed on the entire system in the same scenario as in
Figure 1, but with a variable number of users. While the overall
capacity increases once Nu decreases, it can be seen that this is
not a particular effect of the waterfilling, but is due to the BD
paired with SVD precoding. As far as the performance gain
offered by waterfilling, the dependence on the number of users
is almost insignificant, with a performance gain of only 0.1 dB
when the number of users decreases to Nu = 16.
Figure 2. The capacity offered by the system waterfilling as a function of SNR
and the number of users the system is fragmented in.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper investigates the performance of the waterfilling
power allocation scheme when applied to a Multi-User
Massive-MIMO scenario in combination with the BD and SVD
precoding.
Two types of waterfilling algorithms have been studied: one
in which the waterfilling is performed individually per user and
another one across the entire system. Both methods are shown
to exhibit superior performance to that of the scenario without
waterfilling, while having a reasonable implementation cost.
Particularly, the system waterfilling method shows a larger
performance gain, with the added cost of an unfair power
allocation among users.
Furthermore, the gain offered by waterfilling is proven
through simulations to be independent of the number of users
the system is fragmented in, proving it is scalable to Massive-
MIMO scenarios.
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