Cognitive Hybrid Division Duplex for Two-Tier Femtocell Networks

Abstract

With the exponential increase in high rate traffic given by a new generation of wireless devices, data is expected to overwhelm cellular network capacity in the near future. Femtocell networks have been recently proposed as an efficient and cost-effective approach to provide unprecedented levels of network capacity and coverage. However, the dense and random deployment of femtocells and their uncoordinated operation raise important questions concerning interference pollution and spectrum allocation. Motivated by the flexible subchannel allocation capabilities of cognitive radio, we propose a cognitive hybrid division duplex (CHDD) that is suitable for heterogeneous networks in future mobile communication systems. Specifically, our CHDD scheme has a pair of frequency bands to perform frequency division duplex (FDD) on the macrocell, while time division duplex (TDD) is simultaneously operated in these bands by underlaid cognitive femtocells. By doing so, the proposed CHDD scheme exploits the advantages of both FDD and TDD schemes: operating in FDD at the macrocell tier controls inter-tier interference, whereas operating in TDD at the femtocell tier provides to femtocells the flexibility of adjusting uplink and downlink rates together with opportunistic access benefits. Using tools from stochastic geometry, we provide a methodology on how to design efficient switching mechanisms for cognitive TDD operation of femtocells. In particular, we derive closed-form expressions for the success probability and the area spectral efficiency of the proposed CHDD scheme when the macro tier is in downlink and uplink mode. Furthermore, we propose an open access policy as a means to improve the performance of macrocell transmissions. Our analysis and numerical results show the effectiveness of introducing cognition in femtocells so as to improve the system performance of two-tier femtocell networks.