How much multiuser diversity is required over large-scale fading?

In multiuser diversity systems, the impact of large-scale fading on the total system performance such as link quality and system power has not been widely addressed. Considering large-scale fading, we propose an adaptive multiuser scheduling to minimize the total system power while reducing the effect of large-scale fading on the system bit error rate. The number of active users is adapted to every shadow variation, which varies slower than small-scale fading. We consider the two widely used multiuser systems (i.e., delay-tolerant, and delay-sensitive multiuser systems). Closed-form expressions for the bit error rate are derived. The selection procedure for the minimum number of users is introduced for guaranteed performance of the above multiuser systems. The impact of adaptive multiuser diversity gain on the system power and bit error rate is illustrated over large-scale fading channels by numerical results.