Bounds on achievable degrees of freedom in blind cellular networks

Abstract

Cellular networks are of particular interest when communication takes place. The main barrier of employing cellular networks to reach broad access everywhere is interference. Although interference alignment has by theory raised hopes to leap this last hurdle, however, no operator will show interest for practical implementation of the complicated algorithms proposed so far, especially considering the need for global channel knowledge. Besides, there is no measure to appraise the performance of existing algorithms. In this study, the authors study blind cellular networks to characterise their achievable degrees of freedom. As it is very hard – if not impossible – to obtain its exact value, they provide related upper and lower bounds for this special scenario when power control mechanism is applied in the network. They also propose constructive proof for the lower bound and offer their seminal blind resource allocation algorithm in which they utilise concepts of both frequency alignment and fractional frequency reuse. Analytical upper bounds are also proposed and proved to be tight with respect to simulated results.