Cross-Tier Interference Pricing Based Uplink Resource Allocation in Two-Tier Networks

Abstract

AbstractFemtocells have been considered as a promising technology to provide better indoor coverage and spatial reuse gains. However, the co-channel deployment of macrocells and femtocells is still facing challenges arising from potentially severe inter-cell interference. In this paper, we investigate the uplink resource allocation problem of femtocells in co-channel deployment with macrocells. We first model the uplink power and subchannel allocation in femtocells as a non-cooperative game, where inter-cell interference is taken into account in maximizing the femtocell capacity and uplink femto-to-macro interference is alleviated by charging each femto user a price proportional to the interference that it causes to the macrocell. Based on the non-cooperative game, we then devise a semi-distributed algorithm for each femtocell to first assign subchannels to femto users and then allocate power to subchannels. Simulation results show that the proposed interference-aware femtocell uplink resource allocation algorithm is able to provide improved capacities for not only femtocells but also the macrocell, as well as comparable or even better tiered fairness in the two-tier network, as compared with existing unpriced subchannel assignment algorithm and modified iterative water filling based power allocation algorithm.KeywordsPower AllocationOrthogonal Frequency Division Multiple AccessMacrocell Base StationMacro UserSubchannel AllocationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.