Device-to-Device assisted user clustering for Multiple Access in MIMO WLAN

WLAN is the best choice in the place where complex network is hard to set up. Intelligent terminals are more and more assembled in some areas now. However, according to IEEE 802.11n/802.11ac, the access-point (AP) can only serve one user at a single frequency channel. The spectrum efficiency urgently needs to be improved. In theory, AP with multi-antenna can serve multiple users if these users do not interfere with each other. In this paper, we propose a user clustering scheme that could achieve multi-user selection through the mutual cooperation among users. We focus on two points, one is to achieve multi-user communication with multiple antennas technique at a single frequency channel, and the other one is to use a way of distributed users' collaboration to determine the multi-user selection for user clustering. Firstly, we use the CSMA/CA protocol to select the first user, and then we set this user as a source node using users' cooperation to search other proper users. With the help of the users' broadcast cooperation, we can search and select other appropriate user (while the number of access users is limited by the number of antennas in AP) to access AP with the first user simultaneously. In the network node searching, we propose a maximum degree energy routing searching algorithm, which uses the shortest time and traverses as many users as possible. We carried out the necessary analysis and simulation to prove the feasibility of the scheme. We hope this work may provide a new idea for the solution of the multiple access problem.