Output MAI distributions of linear MMSE multiuser receivers in DS-CDMA systems

Multiple-access interference (MAI) in a code-division multiple-access (CDMA) system plays an important role in performance analysis and characterization of fundamental system limits. In this paper, we study the behavior of the output MAI of the minimum mean-square error (MMSE) receiver employed in the up-link of a direct-sequence (DS)-CDMA system. We focus on imperfect power-controlled systems with random spreading, and establish that in a synchronous system 1) the output MAI of the MMSE receiver is asymptotically Gaussian, and 2) for almost every realization of the signatures and received powers, the conditional distribution of the output MAI converges weakly to the same Gaussian distribution as in the unconditional case. We also extend our study to asynchronous systems and establish the Gaussian nature of the output interference. These results indicate that in a large system the output interference is approximately Gaussian, and the performance of the MMSE receiver is robust to the randomness of the signatures and received powers. The Gaussianity justifies the use of single-user Gaussian codes for CDMA systems with linear MMSE receivers, and implies that from the viewpoints of detection and channel capacity, signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) is the key parameter that governs the performance of the MMSE receiver in a CDMA system.