Uplink multiuser MIMO access with probe packets in distributed wireless networks

This paper proposes a novel access technique that enables uplink multiuser multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) access with small overhead in distributed wireless networks. The proposed access technique introduces a probe packet that is sent to all terminals to judge whether they have the right to transmit their signals or not. The probe packet guarantees high quality MU-MIMO signal transmission when a minimum mean square error (MMSE) filter is applied at the access point, which results in high frequency utilization efficiency. Computer simulation reveals that the proposed access achieves more than twice of the capacity obtained by the traditional carrier sense multiple access/collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) with a single user MIMO, when the access point with 5 antennas is surrounded by the terminals with 2 antennas.