Interference-Aware Precoding and User Selection for Multi-Cell Near-Field XL-MIMO Systems

Abstract

We address the problem of user allocation in the downlink of a multi-user multi-cell communication system where extra-large multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) base stations (BSs) operate under SW (spherical wavefront) propagation. We propose a novel scheduling strategy that categorizes users based on their impact on both the inter-user-interference (IUI) within each cell and the inter-cell-interference (ICI) across the system. This approach efficiently manages the overall system interference while significantly reducing computational overhead. The results show that the proposed solution outperforms baseline zero-forcing beamforming methods and state-of-the-art SW-aware strategies that disregard ICI, allowing for an over 30% improvement in terms of sum-rate.