  Multiuser switched-diversity scheduling schemes were recently proposed in
order to overcome the heavy feedback requirements of conventional opportunistic
scheduling schemes by applying a threshold-based, distributed, and ordered
scheduling mechanism. The main idea behind these schemes is that slight
reduction in the prospected multiuser diversity gains is an acceptable
trade-off for great savings in terms of required channel-state-information
feedback messages. In this work, we characterize the achievable rate region of
multiuser switched diversity systems and compare it with the rate region of
full feedback multiuser diversity systems. We propose also a novel proportional
fair multiuser switched-based scheduling scheme and we demonstrate that it can
be optimized using a practical and distributed method to obtain the feedback
thresholds. We finally demonstrate by numerical examples that
switched-diversity scheduling schemes operate within 0.3 bits/sec/Hz from the
ultimate network capacity of full feedback systems in Rayleigh fading
conditions.
