557 research outputs found
Open vs Closed Access Femtocells in the Uplink
Femtocells are assuming an increasingly important role in the coverage and
capacity of cellular networks. In contrast to existing cellular systems,
femtocells are end-user deployed and controlled, randomly located, and rely on
third party backhaul (e.g. DSL or cable modem). Femtocells can be configured to
be either open access or closed access. Open access allows an arbitrary nearby
cellular user to use the femtocell, whereas closed access restricts the use of
the femtocell to users explicitly approved by the owner. Seemingly, the network
operator would prefer an open access deployment since this provides an
inexpensive way to expand their network capabilities, whereas the femtocell
owner would prefer closed access, in order to keep the femtocell's capacity and
backhaul to himself. We show mathematically and through simulations that the
reality is more complicated for both parties, and that the best approach
depends heavily on whether the multiple access scheme is orthogonal (TDMA or
OFDMA, per subband) or non-orthogonal (CDMA). In a TDMA/OFDMA network,
closed-access is typically preferable at high user densities, whereas in CDMA,
open access can provide gains of more than 200% for the home user by reducing
the near-far problem experienced by the femtocell. The results of this paper
suggest that the interests of the femtocell owner and the network operator are
more compatible than typically believed, and that CDMA femtocells should be
configured for open access whereas OFDMA or TDMA femtocells should adapt to the
cellular user density.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to IEEE Trans. on Wireless
Communication
An interference-aware virtual clustering paradigm for resource management in cognitive femtocell networks
Femtocells represent a promising alternative solution for high quality wireless access in indoor scenarios where conventional cellular system coverage can be poor. They are randomly deployed by the end user, so only post deployment network planning is possible. Furthermore, this uncoordinated deployment creates severe interference to co-located femtocells, especially in dense deployments. This paper presents a new architecture using a generalised virtual cluster femtocell (GVCF) paradigm, which groups together FAP into logical clusters. It guarantees severely interfering and overlapping femtocells are assigned to different clusters. Since each cluster operates on different band of frequencies, the corresponding virtual cluster controller only has to manage its own FAPs, so the overall system complexity is low. The performance of the GVCF algorithm is analysed from both a resource availability and cluster number perspective. Simulation results conclusively corroborate the superior performance of the GVCF model in interference mitigation, particularly in high density FAP scenarios
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
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
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
Coalitional Games with Overlapping Coalitions for Interference Management in Small Cell Networks
In this paper, we study the problem of cooperative interference management in
an OFDMA two-tier small cell network. In particular, we propose a novel
approach for allowing the small cells to cooperate, so as to optimize their
sum-rate, while cooperatively satisfying their maximum transmit power
constraints. Unlike existing work which assumes that only disjoint groups of
cooperative small cells can emerge, we formulate the small cells' cooperation
problem as a coalition formation game with overlapping coalitions. In this
game, each small cell base station can choose to participate in one or more
cooperative groups (or coalitions) simultaneously, so as to optimize the
tradeoff between the benefits and costs associated with cooperation. We study
the properties of the proposed overlapping coalition formation game and we show
that it exhibits negative externalities due to interference. Then, we propose a
novel decentralized algorithm that allows the small cell base stations to
interact and self-organize into a stable overlapping coalitional structure.
Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm results in a notable
performance advantage in terms of the total system sum-rate, relative to the
noncooperative case and the classical algorithms for coalitional games with
non-overlapping coalitions
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Interference Aware Cognitive Femtocell Networks
Femtocells Access Points (FAP) are low power, plug and play home base stations which are designed to extend the cellular radio range in indoor environments where macrocell coverage is generally poor. They offer significant increases in data rates over a short range, enabling high speed wireless and mobile broadband services, with the femtocell network overlaid onto the macrocell in a dual-tier arrangement. In contrast to conventional cellular systems which are well planned, FAP are arbitrarily installed by the end users and this can create harmful interference to both collocated femtocell and macrocell users. The interference becomes particularly serious in high FAP density scenarios and compromises the ensuing data rate. Consequently, effective management of both cross and co-tier interference is a major design challenge in dual-tier networks.
Since traditional radio resource management techniques and architectures for single-tier systems are either not applicable or operate inefficiently, innovative dual-tier approaches to intelligently manage interference are required. This thesis presents a number of original contributions to fulfill this objective including, a new hybrid cross-tier spectrum sharing model which builds upon an existing fractional frequency reuse technique to ensure minimal impact on the macro-tier resource allocation. A new flexible and adaptive virtual clustering framework is then formulated to alleviate co-tier interference in high FAP densities situations and finally, an intelligent coverage extension algorithm is developed to mitigate excessive femto-macrocell handovers, while upholding the required quality of service provision.
This thesis contends that to exploit the undoubted potential of dual-tier, macro-femtocell architectures an interference awareness solution is necessary. Rigorous evidence confirms that noteworthy performance improvements can be achieved in the quality of the received signal and throughput by applying cognitive methods to manage interference
Spectral Efficiency Improvements in HetNets by Exploiting Device-to-Device Communications
Next generation cellular networks require huge capacity, ubiquitous coverage and maximum energy efficiency. In order to meet these targets, Device-to-device (D2D) communication is being considered for future heterogeneous networks (HetNets). In this paper, we consider a three tier hierarchical HetNet by exploiting D2D communication in traditional HetNet. D2D communication is deployed within the HetNet where closely located mobile users are engaged in direct communication without routing the traffic through cellular access network. The proposed configuration mandates to reduce the interference offered by the resultant HetNet by reducing the transmitter-receiver distance and ensuring that the mobile users are transmitting with adaptive power subject to maintaining their desired link quality. In this context, we analyzed and compared the spectral efficiency improvements in hierarchical HetNet against traditional HetNet. Simulation results show that D2D communication offers much higher spectral efficiency as compared to traditional HetNet
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