23 research outputs found
Interference mitigation in cognitive femtocell networks
“A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy”.Femtocells have been introduced as a solution to poor indoor coverage in cellular communication which has hugely attracted network operators and stakeholders. However, femtocells are designed to co-exist alongside macrocells providing improved spatial frequency reuse and higher spectrum efficiency to name a few. Therefore, when deployed in the two-tier architecture with macrocells, it is necessary to mitigate the inherent co-tier and cross-tier
interference. The integration of cognitive radio (CR) in femtocells introduces the ability of femtocells to dynamically adapt to varying network conditions through learning and reasoning.
This research work focuses on the exploitation of cognitive radio in femtocells to mitigate the mutual interference caused in the two-tier architecture. The research work presents original contributions in mitigating interference in femtocells by introducing practical approaches which comprises a power control scheme where femtocells adaptively controls its transmit power levels to reduce the interference it causes in a network. This is especially useful since femtocells are user deployed as this seeks to mitigate interference based on their blind placement in an indoor environment. Hybrid interference mitigation schemes which combine power control and resource/scheduling are also implemented. In a joint threshold power based admittance and contention free resource allocation scheme, the mutual interference between a Femtocell Access Point (FAP) and close-by User Equipments (UE) is mitigated based on admittance. Also, a hybrid scheme where FAPs opportunistically use Resource Blocks (RB) of Macrocell User Equipments (MUE) based on its traffic load use is also employed. Simulation analysis present improvements when these schemes are applied with emphasis in Long Term
Evolution (LTE) networks especially in terms of Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR)
Eficiência energética avançada para sistema OFDMA CoMP coordenação multiponto
Doutoramento em Engenharia EletrotécnicaThe ever-growing energy consumption in mobile networks stimulated by
the expected growth in data tra ffic has provided the impetus for mobile
operators to refocus network design, planning and deployment towards reducing
the cost per bit, whilst at the same time providing a signifi cant step
towards reducing their operational expenditure. As a step towards incorporating
cost-eff ective mobile system, 3GPP LTE-Advanced has adopted the
coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmission technique due to its ability
to mitigate and manage inter-cell interference (ICI). Using CoMP the cell
average and cell edge throughput are boosted. However, there is room for
reducing energy consumption further by exploiting the inherent
exibility of
dynamic resource allocation protocols. To this end packet scheduler plays
the central role in determining the overall performance of the 3GPP longterm
evolution (LTE) based on packet-switching operation and provide a
potential research playground for optimizing energy consumption in future
networks. In this thesis we investigate the baseline performance for down
link CoMP using traditional scheduling approaches, and subsequently go
beyond and propose novel energy e fficient scheduling (EES) strategies that
can achieve power-e fficient transmission to the UEs whilst enabling both
system energy effi ciency gain and fairness improvement. However, ICI can
still be prominent when multiple nodes use common resources with di fferent
power levels inside the cell, as in the so called heterogeneous networks (Het-
Net) environment. HetNets are comprised of two or more tiers of cells. The
rst, or higher tier, is a traditional deployment of cell sites, often referred
to in this context as macrocells. The lower tiers are termed small cells, and
can appear as microcell, picocells or femtocells. The HetNet has attracted
signiffi cant interest by key manufacturers as one of the enablers for high
speed data at low cost. Research until now has revealed several key hurdles
that must be overcome before HetNets can achieve their full potential:
bottlenecks in the backhaul must be alleviated, as well as their seamless
interworking with CoMP. In this thesis we explore exactly the latter hurdle,
and present innovative ideas on advancing CoMP to work in synergy with
HetNet deployment, complemented by a novel resource allocation policy
for HetNet tighter interference management. As system level simulator has
been used to analyze the proposed algorithm/protocols, and results have
concluded that up to 20% energy gain can be observed.O aumento do consumo de energia nas TICs e em particular nas redes de
comunicação móveis, estimulado por um crescimento esperado do tráfego de
dados, tem servido de impulso aos operadores m oveis para reorientarem os
seus projectos de rede, planeamento e implementa ção no sentido de reduzir
o custo por bit, o que ao mesmo tempo possibilita um passo signicativo no
sentido de reduzir as despesas operacionais. Como um passo no sentido de
uma incorporação eficaz em termos destes custos, o sistema móvel 3GPP
LTE-Advanced adoptou a técnica de transmissão Coordenação Multi-Ponto
(identificada na literatura com a sigla CoMP) devido à sua capacidade de
mitigar e gerir Interferência entre Células (sigla ICI na literatura). No entanto
a ICI pode ainda ser mais proeminente quando v arios n os no interior
da célula utilizam recursos comuns com diferentes níveis de energia,
como acontece nos chamados ambientes de redes heterogéneas (sigla Het-
Net na literatura). As HetNets são constituídas por duas ou mais camadas
de células. A primeira, ou camada superiora, constitui uma implantação
tradicional de sítios de célula, muitas vezes referidas neste contexto como
macrocells. Os níveis mais baixos são designados por células pequenas, e
podem aparecer como microcells, picocells ou femtocells. A HetNet tem
atra do grande interesse por parte dos principais fabricantes como sendo
facilitador para transmissões de dados de alta velocidade a baixo custo. A
investigação tem revelado at e a data, vários dos principais obstáculos que
devem ser superados para que as HetNets possam atingir todo o seu potencial:
(i) os estrangulamentos no backhaul devem ser aliviados; (ii) bem
como sua perfeita interoperabilidade com CoMP. Nesta tese exploramos
este ultimo constrangimento e apresentamos ideias inovadoras em como a
t ecnica CoMP poder a ser aperfeiçoada por forma a trabalhar em sinergia
com a implementação da HetNet, complementado ainda com uma nova
perspectiva na alocação de recursos rádio para um controlo e gestão mais
apertado de interferência nas HetNets. Com recurso a simulação a níível de
sistema para analisar o desempenho dos algoritmos e protocolos propostos,
os resultados obtidos concluíram que ganhos at e a ordem dos 20% poderão
ser atingidos em termos de eficiência energética
Radio resource management strategies for interference mitigation in 4G heterogeneous wireless networks
The new era of mobile communications is dictated by the user demand for robust and high speed connections, data hungry applications and seamless connectivity. Operators and researchers all over the world are challenged to fulfill these requirements by providing enhanced coverage, increased capacity and efficient usage of the scarce spectrum. The introduction of the fourth generation systems (4G), LTE and LTE-A, have set the initiative for a technology evolution that offers new possibilities and is able to satisfy the user requirements and overcome the imposed challenges.
However, and despite the improvements brought by the LTE and LTE-A systems, there are certain constraints that still need to be surpassed. LTE for example adopts innovating technologies, such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Access (OFDMA) that improves the spectral efficiency and reduces the Intra-Cell Interference. Nevertheless, Inter-Cell Interference (ICI) remains a constraining factor that can degrade the system capacity and limit the overall performance of the network. On that respect, Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC) techniques are adopted with target the interference mitigation. One of the limitations of these techniques is that follow static configurations lacking of flexibility and adaptation on network changes.
Moreover, LTE-A employs enhanced and new techniques and involves alternative strategies. A promising solution lies on the introduction of Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets), which are networks that include low power small cells under the already existing macro cellular network and exploit several other technologies, such as WiFi. HetNets can further improve the network capacity, enhance the coverage and provide higher speed data transfer. However, due to the heterogeneous nature of the network, traditional methods for the user association, resource allocation and interference mitigation may not always be suitable since their design was based on homogeneous deployments. As such, new and enhanced methods are introduced, such as enhanced ICIC (eICIC), with their accompanied requirements and challenges.
Motivated by the abovementioned aspects, this thesis has been focused on the study of ICIC and eICIC schemes, the identification of the related challenges, the enhancement of existing schemes and the proposal of novel solutions. In particular in the initial stages of the work, ICIC techniques have been studied and analyzed. A distributed algorithm that performs dynamic channel allocation has been developed for homogeneous deployments and extended later on to include heterogeneous networks. The solution has been optimized with the use of the Gibbs Sampler, while the setting of algorithm related parameters has been addressed through a detailed analysis. Moreover, a possible implementation of the solution has been presented in detail. The efficiency of the proposed schemes has been demonstrated through simulations and comparisons with benchmark schemes.
In the next steps, the work has targeted eICIC techniques with purpose the investigation and analysis of the main constraining issues related to the user association, resource management and interference mitigation. Novel eICIC schemes that aim a better resource management and the overall capacity improvement have been developed and presented in detail, while the performance of the solutions has been shown through simulations and comparisons with reference schemes. Moreover, an optimized eICIC solution has been implemented based on genetic algorithms. Simulation results and comparisons with reference schemes have demonstrated the efficiency of the solution, while the selected configurations are discussed and analyzed.La nueva era de las comunicaciones móviles viene marcada por la demanda de los usuarios por conseguir conexiones robustas de alta velocidad que permitan soportar aplicaciones de datos de elevados requerimientos. El cumplimiento de estos requisitos conlleva la necesidad de mejorar la cobertura, incrementar la capacidad y utilizar el espectro eficientemente. La introducción de los sistemas de cuarta generación (4G), LTE y LTE-A, ha dado lugar a una tecnología que ofrece nuevas posibilidades y es capaz de satisfacer las necesidades de los usuarios y superar los retos impuestos. Sin embargo, y a pesar de las mejoras introducidas por estos sistemas, hay ciertas limitaciones que todavía tienen que ser superadas. LTE, por ejemplo, adopta tecnologías tales como OFDMA que mejora la eficiencia espectral y reduce la interferencia intracelular. Sin embargo, la interferencia intercelular (ICI) sigue siendo un factor limitante que puede degradar la capacidad del sistema y limitar el rendimiento global de la red. En ese sentido, se requieren técnicas de coordinación de interferencias intercelulares (ICIC) con el objetivo de mitigar dicha interferencia. Una de las limitaciones de estas técnicas es que siguen configuraciones estáticas que carecen de flexibilidad y capacidad de adaptación a los cambios de la red. Por otra parte, LTE-A introduce nuevas mejoras, como las redes heterogéneas (HetNets), que son redes que incluyen pequeñas células de baja potencia conjuntamente con la red macrocellular y también pueden explotar diferentes tecnologías, como WiFi. Las HetNets pueden mejorar aún más la capacidad de la red, mejorar la cobertura y facilitar la transferencia de datos de mayor velocidad. Sin embargo, debido a la naturaleza heterogénea de la red, los métodos tradicionales para la asociación de usuarios, asignación de recursos y reducción de la interferencia pueden no ser siempre adecuados, ya que su diseño se basó en despliegues homogéneos. En este sentido, es preciso introducir técnicas mejoradas de ICIC, denominadas en inglés eICIC (enhanced-ICIC), que involucran nuevos requerimientos y retos. En base a todos estos aspectos, esta tesis se ha centrado en el estudio de los sistemas de ICIC y eICIC en redes celulares, incluyendo la identificación de los retos relacionados con la mejora de los sistemas existentes y la propuesta de soluciones novedosas. En particular, en las etapas iniciales de la tesis se han estudiado y analizado las técnicas ICIC, y se ha desarrollado un algoritmo distribuido que realiza la asignación dinámica de canales para despliegues homogéneos, ampliándose posteriormente para su utilización en redes heterogéneas. La solución opera de forma optimizada mediante el uso de la técnica denominada Gibbs Sampler, mientras que el ajuste de parámetros relacionado con el algoritmo se ha abordado a través de un análisis detallado basado en simulaciones. Por otra parte, una posible implementación de la solución se ha presentado en detalle. La eficiencia de los esquemas propuestos se ha demostrado a través de simulaciones y comparaciones con sistemas de referencia. En los siguientes pasos, el trabajo se ha centrado en las técnicas eICIC con el propósito de investigar y analizar los principales problemas relacionadas con la asociación de usuarios, gestión de recursos y mitigación de la interferencia. A partir de aquí se han desarrollado nuevos esquemas de eICIC que tienen como objetivo una mejor gestión de los recursos y la mejora general de la capacidad. El rendimiento de las soluciones se ha demostrado a través de simulaciones y comparaciones con sistemas de referencia. Por otra parte, se ha propuesto una solución eICIC optimizada basada en algoritmos genéticos. La eficacia de dicha solución se ha demostrado mediante simulaciones, a la vez que se han analizado las diferentes configuraciones seleccionadas por el proceso de optimización.Postprint (published version