Recent advances in radio resource management for heterogeneous LTE/LTE-A networks

As heterogeneous networks (HetNets) emerge as one of the most promising developments toward realizing the target specifications of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) networks, radio resource management (RRM) research for such networks has, in recent times, been intensively pursued. Clearly, recent research mainly concentrates on the aspect of interference mitigation. Other RRM aspects, such as radio resource utilization, fairness, complexity, and QoS, have not been given much attention. In this paper, we aim to provide an overview of the key challenges arising from HetNets and highlight their importance. Subsequently, we present a comprehensive survey of the RRM schemes that have been studied in recent years for LTE/LTE-A HetNets, with a particular focus on those for femtocells and relay nodes. Furthermore, we classify these RRM schemes according to their underlying approaches. In addition, these RRM schemes are qualitatively analyzed and compared to each other. We also identify a number of potential research directions for future RRM development. Finally, we discuss the lack of current RRM research and the importance of multi-objective RRM studies

Optimisation de la gestion des interférences inter-cellulaires et de l'attachement des mobiles dans les réseaux cellulaires LTE

Driven by an exponential growth in mobile broadband-enabled devices and a continue dincrease in individual data consumption, mobile data traffic has grown 4000-fold over the past 10 years and almost 400-million-fold over the past 15 years. Homogeneouscellular networks have been facing limitations to handle soaring mobile data traffic and to meet the growing end-user demand for more bandwidth and betterquality of experience. These limitations are mainly related to the available spectrumand the capacity of the network. Telecommunication industry has to address these challenges and meet exploding demand. At the same time, it has to guarantee a healthy economic model to reduce the carbon footprint which is caused by mobile communications.Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets), composed of macro base stations and low powerbase stations of different types, are seen as the key solution to improve spectral efficiency per unit area and to eliminate coverage holes. In such networks, intelligent user association and interference management schemes are needed to achieve gains in performance. Due to the large imbalance in transmission power between macroand small cells, user association based on strongest signal received is not adapted inHetNets as only few users would attach to low power nodes. A technique based onCell Individual Offset (CIO) is therefore required to perform load balancing and to favor some Small Cell (SC) attraction against Macro Cell (MC). This offset is addedto users’ Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) measurements and hence inducing handover towards different eNodeBs. As Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular networks use the same frequency sub-bands, mobile users may experience strong inter-cellxv interference, especially at cell edge. Therefore, there is a need to coordinate resource allocation among the cells and minimize inter-cell interference. To mitigate stronginter-cell interference, the resource, in time, frequency and power domain, should be allocated efficiently. A pattern for each dimension is computed to permit especially for cell edge users to benefit of higher throughput and quality of experience. The optimization of all these parameters can also offer gain in energy use. In this thesis,we propose a concrete versatile dynamic solution performing an optimization of user association and resource allocation in LTE cellular networks maximizing a certainnet work utility function that can be adequately chosen. Our solution, based on gametheory, permits to compute Cell Individual Offset and a pattern of power transmission over frequency and time domain for each cell. We present numerical simulations toillustrate the important performance gain brought by this optimization. We obtain significant benefits in the average throughput and also cell edge user through put of40% and 55% gains respectively. Furthermore, we also obtain a meaningful improvement in energy efficiency. This work addresses industrial research challenges and assuch, a prototype acting on emulated HetNets traffic has been implemented.Conduit par une croissance exponentielle dans les appareils mobiles et une augmentation continue de la consommation individuelle des données, le trafic de données mobiles a augmenté de 4000 fois au cours des 10 dernières années et près de 400millions fois au cours des 15 dernières années. Les réseaux cellulaires homogènes rencontrent de plus en plus de difficultés à gérer l’énorme trafic de données mobiles et à assurer un débit plus élevé et une meilleure qualité d’expérience pour les utilisateurs.Ces difficultés sont essentiellement liées au spectre disponible et à la capacité du réseau.L’industrie de télécommunication doit relever ces défis et en même temps doit garantir un modèle économique pour les opérateurs qui leur permettra de continuer à investir pour répondre à la demande croissante et réduire l’empreinte carbone due aux communications mobiles. Les réseaux cellulaires hétérogènes (HetNets), composés de stations de base macro et de différentes stations de base de faible puissance,sont considérés comme la solution clé pour améliorer l’efficacité spectrale par unité de surface et pour éliminer les trous de couverture. Dans de tels réseaux, il est primordial d’attacher intelligemment les utilisateurs aux stations de base et de bien gérer les interférences afin de gagner en performance. Comme la différence de puissance d’émission est importante entre les grandes et petites cellules, l’association habituelle des mobiles aux stations de bases en se basant sur le signal le plus fort, n’est plus adaptée dans les HetNets. Une technique basée sur des offsets individuelles par cellule Offset(CIO) est donc nécessaire afin d’équilibrer la charge entre les cellules et d’augmenter l’attraction des petites cellules (SC) par rapport aux cellules macro (MC). Cette offset est ajoutée à la valeur moyenne de la puissance reçue du signal de référence(RSRP) mesurée par le mobile et peut donc induire à un changement d’attachement vers différents eNodeB. Comme les stations de bases dans les réseaux cellulaires LTE utilisent les mêmes sous-bandes de fréquences, les mobiles peuvent connaître une forte interférence intercellulaire, en particulier en bordure de cellules. Par conséquent, il est primordial de coordonner l’allocation des ressources entre les cellules et de minimiser l’interférence entre les cellules. Pour atténuer la forte interférence intercellulaire, les ressources, en termes de temps, fréquence et puissance d’émission, devraient être alloués efficacement. Un modèle pour chaque dimension est calculé pour permettre en particulier aux utilisateurs en bordure de cellule de bénéficier d’un débit plus élevé et d’une meilleure qualité de l’expérience. L’optimisation de tous ces paramètres peut également offrir un gain en consommation d’énergie. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une solution dynamique polyvalente effectuant une optimisation de l’attachement des mobiles aux stations de base et de l’allocation des ressources dans les réseaux cellulaires LTE maximisant une fonction d’utilité du réseau qui peut être choisie de manière adéquate.Notre solution, basée sur la théorie des jeux, permet de calculer les meilleures valeurs pour l’offset individuelle par cellule (CIO) et pour les niveaux de puissance à appliquer au niveau temporel et fréquentiel pour chaque cellule. Nous présentons des résultats des simulations effectuées pour illustrer le gain de performance important apporté par cette optimisation. Nous obtenons une significative hausse dans le débit moyen et le débit des utilisateurs en bordure de cellule avec 40 % et 55 % de gains respectivement. En outre, on obtient un gain important en énergie. Ce travail aborde des défis pour l’industrie des télécoms et en tant que tel, un prototype de l’optimiseur a été implémenté en se basant sur un trafic HetNets émulé

Radio Resource Management in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

Heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets) have been considered as one of enabling technologies not only to increase the cell coverage and capacity, but to improve the user experience. In this dissertation, we address two research challenges in HetNets: one is the cross-tier interference problem where cell range expansion (CRE) is applied for user offloading in cell association so that pico mobile stations located in expanded range (ER-PMSs), which are connected to macrocells unless CRE is enabled, are severely interfered. The other is the load-aware cell association which tries to overcome the drawback of the received signal strength-based cell association including CRE, i.e., the degradation of network performance by user load imbalance. In the first part, we present the frequency-domain transmit power reduction scheme for the cross-tier interference mitigation. Inspired by the fact that a macrocell accommodates more users than its underlaid picocells, we focus on minimizing the macrocell's performance degradation while improving the throughput of ER-PMSs by the transmit power reduction. Due to the discreteness of frequency resource block scheduling, we also propose a greedy-based heuristic algorithm to solve the binary integer programming problem. In the following part, we present a different approach for the cross-tier interference mitigation, which is the time-domain transmit power nulling scheme utilizing the almost blank subframes (ABSs) in 3GPP standards. We turn our attention to a network-wide performance enhancement through configuring a certain number of ABSs while improving the performance of ER-PMSs as in the first part. A new scheduling policy for pico mobile stations is proposed and the optimal ER-PMS scheduling onto ABSs/non-ABSs is solved by decomposing the problem into multiple independent problems for pico base stations. In the last part, we study the load-aware cell association problem. Due to the combinatorial nature of the cell association problem and the cross-tier interference between macrocells and picocells, we propose an online heuristic algorithm where the cell association and the number of ABSs for cross-tier interference mitigation are jointly optimized. Through approximation of the required condition for load balancing and ABS control from the network-wide utility point of view, the proposed online algorithm not only requires simple feedback messages, but also be applicable to any state of cell association/ABSs in HetNets

Separation Framework: An Enabler for Cooperative and D2D Communication for Future 5G Networks

Soaring capacity and coverage demands dictate that future cellular networks need to soon migrate towards ultra-dense networks. However, network densification comes with a host of challenges that include compromised energy efficiency, complex interference management, cumbersome mobility management, burdensome signaling overheads and higher backhaul costs. Interestingly, most of the problems, that beleaguer network densification, stem from legacy networks' one common feature i.e., tight coupling between the control and data planes regardless of their degree of heterogeneity and cell density. Consequently, in wake of 5G, control and data planes separation architecture (SARC) has recently been conceived as a promising paradigm that has potential to address most of aforementioned challenges. In this article, we review various proposals that have been presented in literature so far to enable SARC. More specifically, we analyze how and to what degree various SARC proposals address the four main challenges in network densification namely: energy efficiency, system level capacity maximization, interference management and mobility management. We then focus on two salient features of future cellular networks that have not yet been adapted in legacy networks at wide scale and thus remain a hallmark of 5G, i.e., coordinated multipoint (CoMP), and device-to-device (D2D) communications. After providing necessary background on CoMP and D2D, we analyze how SARC can particularly act as a major enabler for CoMP and D2D in context of 5G. This article thus serves as both a tutorial as well as an up to date survey on SARC, CoMP and D2D. Most importantly, the article provides an extensive outlook of challenges and opportunities that lie at the crossroads of these three mutually entangled emerging technologies.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 201

Review on Radio Resource Allocation Optimization in LTE/LTE-Advanced using Game Theory

Recently, there has been a growing trend toward ap-plying game theory (GT) to various engineering fields in order to solve optimization problems with different competing entities/con-tributors/players. Researches in the fourth generation (4G) wireless network field also exploited this advanced theory to overcome long term evolution (LTE) challenges such as resource allocation, which is one of the most important research topics. In fact, an efficient de-sign of resource allocation schemes is the key to higher performance. However, the standard does not specify the optimization approach to execute the radio resource management and therefore it was left open for studies. This paper presents a survey of the existing game theory based solution for 4G-LTE radio resource allocation problem and its optimization