In this contribution, we consider a two-tiered network and focus on the
coexistence between the two tiers at physical layer. We target our efforts on a
long term evolution advanced (LTE-A) orthogonal frequency division multiple
access (OFDMA) macro-cell sharing the spectrum with a randomly deployed second
tier of small-cells. In such networks, high levels of co-channel interference
between the macro and small base stations (MBS/SBS) may largely limit the
potential spectral efficiency gains provided by the frequency reuse 1. To
address this issue, we propose a novel cognitive interference alignment based
scheme to protect the macro-cell from the cross-tier interference, while
mitigating the co-tier interference in the second tier. Remarkably, only local
channel state information (CSI) and autonomous operations are required in the
second tier, resulting in a completely self-organizing approach for the SBSs.
The optimal precoder that maximizes the spectral efficiency of the link between
each SBS and its served user equipment is found by means of a distributed
one-shot strategy. Numerical findings reveal non-negligible spectral efficiency
enhancements with respect to traditional time division multiple access
approaches at any signal to noise (SNR) regime. Additionally, the proposed
technique exhibits significant robustness to channel estimation errors,
achieving remarkable results for the imperfect CSI case and yielding consistent
performance enhancements to the network.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted and to appear in IEEE Transactions on
Vehicular Technology Special Section: Self-Organizing Radio Networks, 2013.
Authors' final version. Copyright transferred to IEE
