2012 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference: PHY and Fundamentals

Hierarchical Codebook Design for Fast Search with

Grassmannian Codebook
Kyeongjun Ko and Jungwoo Lee
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Seoul National University, Seoul 151-744, Korea
Email: smuff@wmspl.snu.ac.kr and junglee@ee.snu.ac.kr

AbstractIt has been well known that channel aware systems

(closed-loop) have better performance than channel unknown
systems (open-loop). In order to know channel in the transmitter,
receivers should send own channel information the transmitter
through reverse channel. However, the channel information
should be fed back in Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD)
additionally since forward link channel and reverse link channel
are different each other. In FDD, the channel information is
usually quantized as a codebook and each receiver feedback
the best codeword index within the codebook by any metric
generally. The codebook has the characteristic that as codebook
size is larger system performance increases but computational
complexity to find the best codeword also increases exponentially
in conventional codebook structure. In this paper, we propose
some codebook design schemes which have hierarchical structure
to overcome the complexity problem as well as achieves nearoptimal performance.

channel and time correlated channel. Hierarchical codebooks

were proposed in [4], [8] already. Hierarchical codebook in
[4], however, is designed with DFT codebook and its goal
is not to reduce complexity. On the other hand, hierarchical
codebook in [8] can be only in multiuser MIMO systems.
Our proposed schemes is based on centroid condition by
LBG algorithm [5], [6] and detail will be explained later.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
introduces about the existing codebooks. Then the proposed
hierarchical codebooks for various channel environments and
their simulation results are shown in Section III and Sectioin
IV respectively. Finally, conclusions are given in Section V.

I. INTRODUCTION

Grassmannian line packing is the problem of optimally

packing one-dimensional subspaces [9]. Optimal packing
problem is how should lines be arranged so that they are as far
apart as possible in where is -dimensional complex
space. Here, Grassmannian space (, ) is the set of all
-dimensional subspaces of . Consider the space of unitnorm transmit beamforming vectors . When we assume
1 and 2 and define a distance function on
(, 1) by letting the distance two lines generated from unit
vectors 1 and 2 be the sine of the angle 1,2 between two
lines. The distance is given by [2]

(1)
(1 , 2 ) = sin (1,2 ) = 1 1 2 2 .

It is nearly impossible for the transmitter to know perfect

CSI in FDD since frequency band of forward link channel and
reverse link channel is different each other on the contrary to
TDD which almost perfect CSI can be estimate by sounding
and channel reciprocity.
The technique which has been the most used widely among
them is vector quantization scheme. In detail, codebook
scheme, which is known to both the transmitter and each
receiver, designed already in off-line by vector quantization with channel distribution is used in standards, such as
IEEE 802.16e, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), and IEEE
802.16m [1].
Grassmannian codebook was proposed in [2], [3]. It is
generated so that minimum distance between codewords in
the codebook is maximized. It has been well known that the
codebook is optimal for independent identically distributed
(i.i.d.) channel and it has been used in IEEE 802.16e actually.
Grassmannian codebook, however, has poor performance in
spatially correlated channel. DFT codebook can be a candidate
for both i.i.d. and spatially correlated channel simultaneously
and it was proposed in IEEE 802.16m proposals.
Above the conventional codebooks has large problem when
codebook size is large since computational complexity to
find the best codeword increases exponentially according to
codebook size. Therefore we need to reduce computational
complexity to find the best codeword.
In this paper, we propose some hierarchical codebook
design schemes for two channel environments, that is, i.i.d.

978-1-4673-0437-5/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

II. T HE EXISTING CODEBOOKS

A. Grassmannian Codebook

If we consider a packing of lines in (, 1) by an

matrix W = [1 2 ], where is the vector in
whose column space is the th line in the packing, we are
only interested in cases where > since unitary matrix
is the optimal line packing cases in where naturally.
The minimum distance of a packing is the sine of the smallest
angle between any pair of lines. This is expressed as

1 2 = sin( )
(2)
(W ) = min
1

where is the smallest angle between any pair of lines in

the packing. Therefore Grassmannian codebook is designed
by following condition.
W = arg max ()

where is the set of unit vectors in (, 1).

873

(3)

B. LBG algorithm
The Linde, Buzo, and Gray (LBG) vector quantization
algorithm was proposed in [5]. It has not been considered
relatively for designing codebook in wireless communication
but it can be a good choice as codebook design scheme.
Codebook by LBG algorithm is construct by iterative algorithm, that is, nearest neighbor (NN) condition and the centroid
condition with a training sequence which is provide by channel
realization. The NN condition is to find an optimal partition
for a given codebook and is described as

= {X : (X, C ) < (X, C ), = }

(4)

where X is a channel sample from the training set, C is the

th codeword, and is the region represented by C .
In [6], an modified LBG vector quantization algorithm
which uses chordal distance [9] as distance measure in centroid condition was proposed. The centroid condition in LBG
algorithm is to find the best codeword for a given partition.
The centroid condition of [6], however, is different from that
of [5] since their distance measure is different each other and
it affects the centroid condition. The centroid condition is then
discribed as
(5)
C = UR I .

where is the transmit power, H is the channel matrix

whose channel entries are i.i.d. complex Gaussian with zero
mean and unit variance, V is the precoding matrix,
s is the transmit symbol, and n is the 1 complex white
Gaussian noise vector with unit variance.
The centroid condition makes the average distortion (distance) minimize as shown (7). For example, we assume there
are two subspaces, 1 and 2 which can be vectors or matrices
and let subspace determined by centroid condition of subspace
1 and 2 be subspace 3. Then, chordal distance between
subspace 1 and 3 is same to that between subspace 2 and
3 because of centroid condition.
The first hierarchical codebook design scheme for i.i.d.
channel uses the centroid condition of LBG algorithm.
Basically, the proposed algorithm uses a Grassmannian
codebook since codewords in Grassmannian codebook are
the farthest each other than any other codebooks. Summary
of hierarchical codebook design in i.i.d. channel is shown as
follows.
=
1) Let define Grassmannian codebook, 1
{1 , 2 , . . . , 21 }, where is the th vector or
matrix codeword and 21 is the size of 1 .
2) Compute all chordal distances between and each
(1 21 , = ) for all , (1 21 ).
3) Sort the chordal distance with ascending order for each
and find 22 codewords which have minimum chordal
distance for each . Let the 22 codewords for each
be , (1 22 ).
4) Find centroids between each and each , for each
, . Let it be , .
5) Find centroids between each and each , .
6) Centroids in 5) consist of new child codebooks.

where and is the number of transmit antennas and receive antennas respectively, and UR is the unitary eigenvector
matrix in the eigen decomposition of the sample covariance
matrix R, which is defined as

1
X X
(6)
R=

where X is the training sample. The centroid condition

minimizes the average distance in confirmed by NN
condition and updates the codbook. The process is as follows
[6].

1
2 (X , C)
C = arg min
C
X

(
)
1
= arg min
I C X X
C
C
X
( )
(7)
= arg max C RC
C

where C is the codebook set which consists of C (1

2 ). Here, is the number of feedback bits.
III. H IERARCHICAL C ODEBOOK D ESIGN
In this section, we propose three hierarchical codebook
design schemes to reduce search complexity for i.i.d. channel
and time correlated channel.
A. Codebook Design in i.i.d. channel
At first, we consider the simplest system model where
are a transmitter and a receiver in a cell to focus in the
system performance by hierarchical codebook design. When
we assume the receiver estimate own channel perfectly for
block fading channel, the system model is given by

(8)
y = / H Vs + n

One of characteristics of the proposed codebook design

scheme is to regenerate new child codebooks with the existing
codebook. Thus, the hierarchical codebook is composed of two
stages by the child codebooks.
In the system the proposed hierarchical codebook is used,
the receiver estimates own channel at first and finds the best
codeword with chordal distance in the first stage codebook,
1 . Let the best codeword be . After is determined in
the first stage codebook, the receiver selects the best codeword
at the second stage codebook, , when we denote the child
codebook in as = {,1 , ,2 , . . . , ,22 }. If we let the
best codeword at be , , the final selected codeword is
, and the feedback informations are the indeces of and
.
For example, we assume a limited feedback system with
1 = 4, 2 = 2. Then 1 is 4 bit Grassmannian codebook and
child codebook generated by 1 , which has 4 codewords for
each (1 21 ), is constructed. If the selected codeword
in 1 is 10 , = 10 and the best codeword is determined
in 10 . When the best codeword is 10,3 , the final feedback
informations are the index 10 in 1 and the index 3 in 2 .
Therefore the number of total feedback bits, , is 1 + 2 =
6.

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Assuming {21 } 0, we have

2 () = (22 21 )
2
{ 2 ( )
2
, 0
( )
=
1,

Fig. 1. Hierarchical codebook design in i.i.d. channel using double centroid

In order to construct the child codebooks, we should compute all chordal distances between all possible codeword combinations at first. Then the 22 codewords which are the nearest to each are selected. Let the set of 22 codewords which
are the nearest to each be = {,1 , ,2 , . . . , ,22 }.
The reason why the nearest codewords are selected is because
when is selected in 1 , the real channel estimated in
the receiver exists near . After is selected, we find
the centroid between each and each , . The centroid
represents boundary of and , since chordal distance
between and the centroid is the same to that between ,
and the centroid. Then the violet is region of and the red is
region of , in Fig. 1. We should find the centroid between
and in Fig. 1 to determine the representative codeword
in region of again.
The important characteristic of the proposed hierarchical
codebook is to achieve complexity reduction with similar perfomance compared to conventional codebooks. The hierarchical codebook needs 21 +22 comparisons with real estimated
channel while conventional codebooks needs 2 comparisons
when = 1 + 2 . For example, when 1 = 4 and 2 = 2
the hierarchical codebook needs 20 comparisons with channel
and conventional codebook needs 64 comparisons. It achieves
about 70% computational complexity reduction. Shown as
simulation results, capacity of two codebook schemes is very
similar.
By using quantization cell approximation, the CDF of
quantization error at the first stage is given by [11]
{
2 () =
1

21 ( ) ,
1,

(9)

where is the same as ,,, in [11], 1 is the chordal

distance between the channel
and
the nearest codeword of
)1/(
(
( ))
. The CDF of
the 1st stage, and = 211
quantization error at the 2nd stage is given by
2 () = {22 21 } {21 }
2

+ {22 21 } {21 }.

(10)

(11)

where 2 is the chordal distance between the channel and the

nearest codeword of the 2nd stage, and = ( 21 2 )1/ ( ) .
Thus, the expectation of the quantization error of the hierarchical codebook is given by

2 ()
[] =
2
0
(12)
(1 +2 )
( )
1
(
) .
2
=
( ) + 1 1/( ( ))
From (12), [] decreases exponentially with respect to
1 + 2 . Since the search complexity is (21 + 22 ), it
is minimized when 1 = 2 .
The second hierarchical codebook design for i.i.d. channel
is the codebook mapping scheme. It is composed of two stage
codebooks like hierarchical codebook by double centroid, but
two stage codebooks in a codebook mapping scheme are all the
existing codebooks while the hierarchical codebook by double
centroid is the scheme that the second stage codebook is
generated by the first stage codebook, which is Grassmannian
codebook.
The hierarchical codebook does not have to be composed
of two stages necessarily. As stages are more, however, as
the performance is lower since as a stage is added, difference
between optimal codebook and hierarchical codebook is larger.
Summary of the codebook mapping scheme for i.i.d.
channel is as follows.
1) Let define two Grassmannian codebooks, 1 =
{1 , 2 , . . . , 21 } and 2 = {1 , 2 , . . . , 22 } where
1 < 2 .
2) Compute all chordal distances between (1 21 )
and (1 22 ) for each , .
3) Find , = arg min121 ( , ) for each .
4) Construct the sets which have the same s values
about all s values.
The codebook mapping scheme has tree structure with
two stage codebooks and thus 2 should be larger than 1 .
After the receiver estimates the real channel, the receiver
finds the codeword which has minimum chordal distance
with the channel in 1 at first in practical systems. Let the
selected codeword be . Then the best codeword among
the codewords in 2 connected to by codebook mapping
scheme previously is selected. On the contrary to conventional
case which considers all codewords in 2 , the hierarchical
codebook mapping scheme reduces computational complexity
since codewords in 1 and some codewords in 2 are only
considered. The codebook mapping scheme is similar to tree
structured vector quantization (TSVQ) [5] but it is the scheme
which connects artificially between 1 and 2 which are the
existing codebooks while TSVQ constructs the second stage
codebook with the first stage codebook by training samples.

875

4) Find centroids between each and each , for each

, . Let it be , .
5) Find the centroid between each and each , . Let the
centroid be ,,1 .
6) Find the centroid between each , and each , . Let
the centroid be ,,2 .
7) The centroids in both 5) and 6) consist of new child
codebooks.

Fig. 2.

Hierarchical codebook design principal in time correlated channel

The principal of the codebook mapping scheme is to make

region of each with . That is achieved by finding
codewords which is nearest to each and builds the region
of each . The reason why we build the region of each is
because when is selected in 1 the real channel is located
near . We can expect that the scheme is able to be applied
in practical system easily since it is very simple scheme which
uses the existing codebook as it is.
B. Codebook Design in Time Correlated Channel
The channel in time correlation channel model is given by

H() = H( 1) + 1 2 channel(, ). (13)

where is time correlated factor and channel(, ) is the
random channel matrix. is determined by Jakes
model as follows.
() = 0 (2 ).

(14)

where 0 () is the zeroth-order Bessel function of the first

kind, is the Doppler shift, and is the sampling time.
For example, by letting = 1, = 5ms, and velocity is
3km/h when the carrier frequency is 2.5 GHz (WiMax), is
0.9881.
Channel variation between previous time slot and present
time slot is small in time correlated channel. Therefore
codebook size does not have to be large since it is possible
for present channel to be predicted to some degree by channel
in previous time slot. We propose a hierarchical codebook
design scheme by using the characteristic of time correlated
channel. Summary of the codebook design scheme is as
follows.
=
1) Let define Grassmannian codebook, 1
{1 , 2 , . . . , 21 }, where is the th vector or
matrix codeword and 21 is the size of 1 .
2) Compute all chordal distances between and each
(1 21 , = ) for all , (1 21 ).
3) Sort the chordal distance with ascending order for each
and find 22 1 codewords which have minimum
chordal distance for each . Let the 22 1 codewords
for each be , (1 22 1 ).

Design process of the hierarchical codebook in time correlated channel is similar to that in i.i.d. channel. However,
the codebook design scheme in time correlated channel builds
two centroids for a and a , , that is, ,,1 and ,,2
and thus it finds centroid with not 22 codewords, but 22 1
codewords. Here, ,,1 means the centroid for region of ,
,,2 means the centroid for region of , and both ,,1
and ,,2 build the child codebook for . Fig. 2 shows
the proposed hierarchical codebook design principal in time
correlated channel.
In the point of codebook structure, the codebook is composed of two stage codebooks like the previously proposed
hierarchical codebook scheme, and 22 1 codewords belong
to region of and the rest 22 1 codewords belong to region
of , (1 22 1 ).
In practical systems the best codeword is selected at 1 in
the first time slot. Let it be . From the second time slot, the
best codeword is selected at not 1 , but child codebook for
which has 22 codewords up to refresh time and the next child
codebook is determined by the best codeword in previous time
slot. For example, we assume 1 = 3, 2 = 2 and the two
codewords which are the nearest to 1 are 5 and 8 . If 1,8,2
at child codebook for 1 is selected at 1 time slot, the best
codeword should be determined at child codebook for 8 at
time slot since the real channel is located at region of 8 . If
1,8,1 at child codebook for 1 is selected at 1 time slot,
the best codewrod should be determined at child codebook for
1 at time slot since the real channel is located at region of
1 .
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
In this section, we compare capacity of the proposed hierarchical codebook scheme with conventional codebook. The
proposed hierarchical codebooks are designed with Grassmannian codebook in [7], [10].
Fig.3 shows capacity comparion between conventional
codebook and hierarchical codebook by double centroid in
i.i.d. channel when = 4, = 2, = 6, 1 = 4, 2 = 2.
We can see that the proposed codebook scheme achieves
very similar performance with conventional codebook while it
reduces about 70% computional complexity with conventional
codebook scheme.
Fig.4 shows capacity comparison between conventional
codebook scheme and codebook mapping scheme in i.i.d.
channel when = 4, = 1, 1 = 4, 2 = 6. Two
codebooks for codebook mapping are 3bit and 6bit codebooks
in [7]. 4 codewords in 3 bit codebook connect to 9 codewords
in 6 bit codebook respectively and the others in 3 bit codebook

876

14

14

Conventional(6bit)
Double centriod(4+2bit)

10

10
Capacity

12

Capacity

12

10
SNR

15

2
0

20

Fig. 3. Capacity comparison according to SNR variation between conventional codebook and hierarchical codebook by double centroid in i.i.d. channel
when = 4, = 2, = 6, 1 = 4, 2 = 2.
9
8

10
SNR

15

20

Fig. 5. Capacity comparison according to SNR variation between conventional codebook and the hierarchical codebook scheme in time correlated
channel when = 4, = 2, = 6, = 4.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was supported in part by Basic Science
Research Program (2010-0013397) and Mid-career Researcher
Program (2010-0027155) through the NRF funded by the
MEST, Seoul R&BD Program (JP091007, 0423-20090051),
the INMAC, and BK21.

5
4
3
2
1
0

codebook scheme have very similar performance compared to

conventional codebook scheme with much complexity reduction.

Conventional(6bit)
Codebook Mapping(6bit)

7
Capacity

2
0

Conventional 6bit
Hirarchical 4bit

10
SNR

15

20

R EFERENCES

Fig. 4.
Capacity comparison according to SNR variation between conventional codebook and codebook mapping scheme in i.i.d. channel when
= 4, = 1, 1 = 4, 2 = 6.

connect to 7 codewors in 6 bit codebook respectively in

= 4, = 1 case. Therefore codebook mapping scheme has
maximum 8+9=17 comparisons with the real channel while
conventional codebook scheme has 64 comparisons. Capacity
of the codebook mapping scheme is also very similar to
conventional codebook scheme.
Fig.5 shows capacity comparison between conventional
codebook and the hierarchical codebook scheme in time correlated channel when = 4, = 2, = 6, = 4 where
is the number of feedback bits in time correlated channel.
Here, is 0.9172 considering 8km/h mobility in WiMax. We
assume sampling time is 5ms and refresh time is 100ms. We
can see the proposed 4 bit codebook in time correlated channel
has similiar capacity to 6 bit conventional codebook.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we propose three hierarchical codebook
schemes in i.i.d. channel and time correlated channel to reduce
computational complexity with minimum performance loss.
Common point of the schemes is to use region of each
codeword in the first stage codebook. We can think the concept
as combination of both Grassmannian codebook and LBG
algorithm. Simulation results show the proposed hierarchical

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