  A multiple antenna downlink channel where limited channel feedback is
available to the transmitter is considered. In a vector downlink channel
(single antenna at each receiver), the transmit antenna array can be used to
transmit separate data streams to multiple receivers only if the transmitter
has very accurate channel knowledge, i.e., if there is high-rate channel
feedback from each receiver. In this work it is shown that channel feedback
requirements can be significantly reduced if each receiver has a small number
of antennas and appropriately combines its antenna outputs. A combining method
that minimizes channel quantization error at each receiver, and thereby
minimizes multi-user interference, is proposed and analyzed. This technique is
shown to outperform traditional techniques such as maximum-ratio combining
because minimization of interference power is more critical than maximization
of signal power in the multiple antenna downlink. Analysis is provided to
quantify the feedback savings, and the technique is seen to work well with user
selection and is also robust to receiver estimation error.
