457 research outputs found
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
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
Improving Macrocell - Small Cell Coexistence through Adaptive Interference Draining
The deployment of underlay small base stations (SBSs) is expected to
significantly boost the spectrum efficiency and the coverage of next-generation
cellular networks. However, the coexistence of SBSs underlaid to an existing
macro-cellular network faces important challenges, notably in terms of spectrum
sharing and interference management. In this paper, we propose a novel
game-theoretic model that enables the SBSs to optimize their transmission rates
by making decisions on the resource occupation jointly in the frequency and
spatial domains. This procedure, known as interference draining, is performed
among cooperative SBSs and allows to drastically reduce the interference
experienced by both macro- and small cell users. At the macrocell side, we
consider a modified water-filling policy for the power allocation that allows
each macrocell user (MUE) to focus the transmissions on the degrees of freedom
over which the MUE experiences the best channel and interference conditions.
This approach not only represents an effective way to decrease the received
interference at the MUEs but also grants the SBSs tier additional transmission
opportunities and allows for a more agile interference management. Simulation
results show that the proposed approach yields significant gains at both
macrocell and small cell tiers, in terms of average achievable rate per user,
reaching up to 37%, relative to the non-cooperative case, for a network with
150 MUEs and 200 SBSs
Opportunistic Third-Party Backhaul for Cellular Wireless Networks
With high capacity air interfaces and large numbers of small cells, backhaul
-- the wired connectivity to base stations -- is increasingly becoming the cost
driver in cellular wireless networks. One reason for the high cost of backhaul
is that capacity is often purchased on leased lines with guaranteed rates
provisioned to peak loads. In this paper, we present an alternate
\emph{opportunistic backhaul} model where third parties provide base stations
and backhaul connections and lease out excess capacity in their networks to the
cellular provider when available, presumably at significantly lower costs than
guaranteed connections. We describe a scalable architecture for such
deployments using open access femtocells, which are small plug-and-play base
stations that operate in the carrier's spectrum but can connect directly into
the third party provider's wired network. Within the proposed architecture, we
present a general user association optimization algorithm that enables the
cellular provider to dynamically determine which mobiles should be assigned to
the third-party femtocells based on the traffic demands, interference and
channel conditions and third-party access pricing. Although the optimization is
non-convex, the algorithm uses a computationally efficient method for finding
approximate solutions via dual decomposition. Simulations of the deployment
model based on actual base station locations are presented that show that large
capacity gains are achievable if adoption of third-party, open access
femtocells can reach even a small fraction of the current market penetration of
WiFi access points.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
Self-optimization of pilot power in enterprise femtocells using multi objective heuristic
Deployment of a large number of femtocells to jointly provide coverage in an enterprise environment raises critical challenges especially in future self-organizing networks which rely on plug-and-play techniques for configuration. This paper proposes a multi-objective heuristic based on a genetic algorithm for a centralized self-optimizing network containing a group of UMTS femtocells. In order to optimize the network coverage in terms of handled load, coverage gaps, and overlaps, the algorithm provides a dynamic update of the downlink pilot powers of the deployed femtocells. The results demonstrate that the algorithm can effectively optimize the coverage based on the current statistics of the global traffic distribution and the levels of interference between neighboring femtocells. The algorithm was also compared with the fixed pilot power scheme. The results show over fifty percent reduction in pilot power pollution and a significant enhancement in network performance. Finally, for a given traffic distribution, the solution quality and the efficiency of the described algorithm were evaluated by comparing the results generated by an exhaustive search with the same pilot power configuration
Green Cellular Networks: A Survey, Some Research Issues and Challenges
Energy efficiency in cellular networks is a growing concern for cellular
operators to not only maintain profitability, but also to reduce the overall
environment effects. This emerging trend of achieving energy efficiency in
cellular networks is motivating the standardization authorities and network
operators to continuously explore future technologies in order to bring
improvements in the entire network infrastructure. In this article, we present
a brief survey of methods to improve the power efficiency of cellular networks,
explore some research issues and challenges and suggest some techniques to
enable an energy efficient or "green" cellular network. Since base stations
consume a maximum portion of the total energy used in a cellular system, we
will first provide a comprehensive survey on techniques to obtain energy
savings in base stations. Next, we discuss how heterogeneous network deployment
based on micro, pico and femto-cells can be used to achieve this goal. Since
cognitive radio and cooperative relaying are undisputed future technologies in
this regard, we propose a research vision to make these technologies more
energy efficient. Lastly, we explore some broader perspectives in realizing a
"green" cellular network technologyComment: 16 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
Scenario driven requirement engineering for design and deployment of mobile communication networks
The numbers of users and usage of mobile data service are increasing dramatically due to the introduction of smartphones and mobile broadband dongles. For the next decade the mobile broadband market is expected to grow and reach a level where the average data consumption per user is orders of magnitude greater than today. For the telecom industry it is a magnificent challenge to design and deploy these s high-capacity wireless networks taking into account limitations in cost, energy and radio spectrum. The objective of this paper is to highlight the need to consider a multitude of scenarios for the requirements, design and deployment of mobile broad band networks. The R&D has for many years been targeting high peak data rates enabled by improved spectral efficiency, adding more spectrum bands, aggregation of frequency bands and offloading to local wireless networks connected via public fixed phones or broadband. However, many of these features driving the technology development are representative for the conditions in US and Western Europe. The wireless networks also need to be designed assuming deployment in regions in the world where both the availability of spectrum as well as the penetration of fixed phones and broadband are limited. --Mobile broadband networks,cost and capacity,spectrum,deployment strategies,telecommunications,management of technology and R&D,economic development of natural resources
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
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