LTE-Advanced radio access enhancements: A survey

Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-Advanced) is the next step in LTE evolution and allows operators to improve network performance and service capabilities through smooth deployment of new techniques and technologies. LTE-Advanced uses some new features on top of the existing LTE standards to provide better user experience and higher throughputs. Some of the most significant features introduced in LTE-Advanced are carrier aggregation, enhancements in heterogeneous networks, coordinated multipoint transmission and reception, enhanced multiple input multiple output usage and deployment of relay nodes in the radio network. Mentioned features are mainly aimed to enhance the radio access part of the cellular networks. This survey article presents an overview of the key radio access features and functionalities of the LTE-Advanced radio access network, supported by the simulation results. We also provide a detailed review of the literature together with a very rich list of the references for each of the features. An LTE-Advanced roadmap and the latest updates and trends in LTE markets are also presented

Cooperative Multi-Cell Block Diagonalization with Per-Base-Station Power Constraints

Block diagonalization (BD) is a practical linear precoding technique that eliminates the inter-user interference in downlink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. In this paper, we apply BD to the downlink transmission in a cooperative multi-cell MIMO system, where the signals from different base stations (BSs) to all the mobile stations (MSs) are jointly designed with the perfect knowledge of the downlink channels and transmit messages. Specifically, we study the optimal BD precoder design to maximize the weighted sum-rate of all the MSs subject to a set of per-BS power constraints. This design problem is formulated in an auxiliary MIMO broadcast channel (BC) with a set of transmit power constraints corresponding to those for individual BSs in the multi-cell system. By applying convex optimization techniques, this paper develops an efficient algorithm to solve this problem, and derives the closed-form expression for the optimal BD precoding matrix. It is revealed that the optimal BD precoding vectors for each MS in the per-BS power constraint case are in general non-orthogonal, which differs from the conventional orthogonal BD precoder design for the MIMO-BC under one single sum-power constraint. Moreover, for the special case of single-antenna BSs and MSs, the proposed solution reduces to the optimal zero-forcing beamforming (ZF-BF) precoder design for the weighted sum-rate maximization in the multiple-input single-output (MISO) BC with per-antenna power constraints. Suboptimal and low-complexity BD/ZF-BF precoding schemes are also presented, and their achievable rates are compared against those with the optimal schemes.Comment: accepted in JSAC, special issue on cooperative communications on cellular networks, June 201

Investigation on Evolving Single-Carrier NOMA into Multi-Carrier NOMA in 5G

© 2013 IEEE. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is one promising technology, which provides high system capacity, low latency, and massive connectivity, to address several challenges in the fifth-generation wireless systems. In this paper, we first reveal that the NOMA techniques have evolved from single-carrier NOMA (SC-NOMA) into multi-carrier NOMA (MC-NOMA). Then, we comprehensively investigated on the basic principles, enabling schemes and evaluations of the two most promising MC-NOMA techniques, namely sparse code multiple access (SCMA) and pattern division multiple access (PDMA). Meanwhile, we consider that the research challenges of SCMA and PDMA might be addressed with the stimulation of the advanced and matured progress in SC-NOMA. Finally, yet importantly, we investigate the emerging applications, and point out the future research trends of the MC-NOMA techniques, which could be straightforwardly inspired by the various deployments of SC-NOMA