462 research outputs found
Enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination Challenges in Heterogeneous Networks
3GPP LTE-Advanced has started a new study item to investigate Heterogeneous
Network (HetNet) deployments as a cost effective way to deal with the
unrelenting traffic demand. HetNets consist of a mix of macrocells, remote
radio heads, and low-power nodes such as picocells, femtocells, and relays.
Leveraging network topology, increasing the proximity between the access
network and the end-users, has the potential to provide the next significant
performance leap in wireless networks, improving spatial spectrum reuse and
enhancing indoor coverage. Nevertheless, deployment of a large number of small
cells overlaying the macrocells is not without new technical challenges. In
this article, we present the concept of heterogeneous networks and also
describe the major technical challenges associated with such network
architecture. We focus in particular on the standardization activities within
the 3GPP related to enhanced inter-cell interference coordination.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 2 table
A survey of machine learning techniques applied to self organizing cellular networks
In this paper, a survey of the literature of the past fifteen years involving Machine Learning (ML) algorithms applied to self organizing cellular networks is performed. In order for future networks to overcome the current limitations and address the issues of current cellular systems, it is clear that more intelligence needs to be deployed, so that a fully autonomous and flexible network can be enabled. This paper focuses on the learning perspective of Self Organizing Networks (SON) solutions and provides, not only an overview of the most common ML techniques encountered in cellular networks, but also manages to classify each paper in terms of its learning solution, while also giving some examples. The authors also classify each paper in terms of its self-organizing use-case and discuss how each proposed solution performed. In addition, a comparison between the most commonly found ML algorithms in terms of certain SON metrics is performed and general guidelines on when to choose each ML algorithm for each SON function are proposed. Lastly, this work also provides future research directions and new paradigms that the use of more robust and intelligent algorithms, together with data gathered by operators, can bring to the cellular networks domain and fully enable the concept of SON in the near future
Self-organising comprehensive handover strategy for multi-tier LTE-advanced heterogeneous networks
Long term evolution (LTE)-advanced was introduced as real fourth generation (4G) with its new features and additional functions, satisfying the growing demands of quality and network coverage for the network operators' subscribers. The term muti-tier has also been recently used with respect to the heterogeneity of the network by applying the various subnetwork cooperative systems and functionalities with self-organising capabilities. Using indoor short-range low-power cellular base stations, for example, femtocells, in cooperation with existing long-range macrocells are considered as the key technical challenge of this multi-tier configuration. Furthermore, shortage of network spectrum is a major concern for network operators which forces them to spend additional attentions to overcome the degradation in performance and quality of services in 4G HetNets. This study investigates handover between the different layers of a heterogeneous LTE-advanced system, as a critical attribute to plan the best way of interactive coordination within the network for the proposed HetNet. The proposed comprehensive handover algorithm takes multiple factors in both handover sensing and decision stages, based on signal power reception, resource availability and handover optimisation, as well as prioritisation among macro and femto stations, to obtain maximum signal quality while avoiding unnecessary handovers
Handover Management in Highly Dense Femtocellular Networks
For dense femtocells, intelligent integrated femtocell/macrocell network
architecture, a neighbor cell list with a minimum number of femtocells,
effective call admission control (CAC), and handover processes with proper
signaling are the open research issues. An appropriate traffic model for the
integrated femtocell/macrocell network is also not yet developed. In this
paper, we present the major issue of mobility management for the integrated
femtocell/macrocell network. We propose a novel algorithm to create a neighbor
cell list with a minimum, but appropriate, number of cells for handover. We
also propose detailed handover procedures and a novel traffic model for the
integrated femtocell/macrocell network. The proposed CAC effectively handles
various calls. The numerical and simulation results show the importance of the
integrated femtocell/macrocell network and the performance improvement of the
proposed schemes. Our proposed schemes for dense femtocells will be very
effective for those in research and industry to implement
A self-organized resource allocation scheme for heterogeneous macro-femto networks
This paper investigates the radio resource management (RRM) issues in a heterogeneous macro-femto network. The objective of femto deployment is to improve coverage, capacity, and experienced quality of service of indoor users. The location and density of user-deployed femtos is not known a-priori. This makes interference management crucial. In particular, with co-channel allocation (to improve resource utilization efficiency), RRM becomes involved because of both cross-layer and co-layer interference. In this paper, we review the resource allocation strategies available in the literature for heterogeneous macro-femto network. Then, we propose a self-organized resource allocation (SO-RA) scheme for an orthogonal frequency division multiple access based macro-femto network to mitigate co-layer interference in the downlink transmission. We compare its performance with the existing schemes like Reuse-1, adaptive frequency reuse (AFR), and AFR with power control (one of our proposed modification to AFR approach) in terms of 10 percentile user throughput and fairness to femto users. The performance of AFR with power control scheme matches closely with Reuse-1, while the SO-RA scheme achieves improved throughput and fairness performance. SO-RA scheme ensures minimum throughput guarantee to all femto users and exhibits better performance than the existing state-of-the-art resource allocation schemes
Spectrum Leasing as an Incentive towards Uplink Macrocell and Femtocell Cooperation
The concept of femtocell access points underlaying existing communication
infrastructure has recently emerged as a key technology that can significantly
improve the coverage and performance of next-generation wireless networks. In
this paper, we propose a framework for macrocell-femtocell cooperation under a
closed access policy, in which a femtocell user may act as a relay for
macrocell users. In return, each cooperative macrocell user grants the
femtocell user a fraction of its superframe. We formulate a coalitional game
with macrocell and femtocell users being the players, which can take individual
and distributed decisions on whether to cooperate or not, while maximizing a
utility function that captures the cooperative gains, in terms of throughput
and delay.We show that the network can selforganize into a partition composed
of disjoint coalitions which constitutes the recursive core of the game
representing a key solution concept for coalition formation games in partition
form. Simulation results show that the proposed coalition formation algorithm
yields significant gains in terms of average rate per macrocell user, reaching
up to 239%, relative to the non-cooperative case. Moreover, the proposed
approach shows an improvement in terms of femtocell users' rate of up to 21%
when compared to the traditional closed access policy.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures, accepted at the IEEE JSAC on Femtocell Network
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