Abstract
The introduction of femtocells in mobile networks gives rise to new co-layer and cross-layer interference scenarios. To mitigate interference, several approaches have been proposed in the literature including, e.g., transmit beamforming (TBF), power control, and fractional frequency reuse. In this article, we present an interference mitigation approach that relies on a low-rate control channel between the victim terminal and the interfering femto access point (FAP). The proposed method combines both, practical TBF schemes and simple one-bit channel-aware scheduling algorithms. We show that the proposed method can be effectively used not only to mitigate interference among FAPs, but also to balance user rates in adjacent cells with small signaling overhead.
Highlights
Eventhough the concept of the home base station (HBS) was introduced as early as 1996 [1,2] and Alcatel was planning to commercialize it in 2000 [3], it took until around 2007– 2008 for the research and concurrent business activities to gain real momentum
Using a combination of practical transmit beamforming (TBF) methods and simple channel-aware inter-cell scheduling algorithms, we show that resources can be transferred from a cell operating in high SINR regime to a cell that is operating with low SINR
Eventhough the received signal power from the serving femto access point (FAP) is typically high, the proximity of neighboring femtocells may lead to high levels of received interference and, as a consequence, low SINR values
Summary
Eventhough the concept of the home base station (HBS) was introduced as early as 1996 [1,2] and Alcatel was planning to commercialize it in 2000 [3], it took until around 2007– 2008 for the research and concurrent business activities to gain real momentum. The femtocell term, was adopted around 2005 for a standalone, self-configuring low-power base station [4]. Femtocells constitute an important study topic with a significant body of accumulated research, receiving wide industry support at the same time. Adding the femtocell component into the existing macrocellular networks raises a number of technical challenges related to, e.g., timing and synchronization, spectrum allocation and interference management [5]. Eventhough mobile operators may in principle allocate a separate carrier for femtocell operations (eliminating thereby the cross-layer interference problem), constraints related to spectrum availability and costs often make this approach unattractive or unfeasible. Even in presence of a dedicated band for femto-femto operation, interference still remains as a serious problem: the uncoordinated nature of femtocell deployments generates a great variability in the quality of service (QoS) that the users perceive in the network
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