Dynamic Channel Allocation in Small Cells

Abstract

The inter-cell interference coordination techniques which include frequency reuse and Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA) play a vital role in improving the spectrum efficiency. The techniques of frequency reuse are very sophisticated. Depending on the traffic demand, channels allocated to each cell is varied in DCA. In OFDM based cellular systems, the channel information and interference signals can be measured easily whose knowledge is essential for DCA. Hence, in OFDM systems, DCA can improve the spectral efficiency to a great extent. The next generation cellular systems would incorporate small cell (Micro, Pico and Femto) base stations for extensive frequency reuse and spectrum utility. They would also include millimeter wave (mmWave) for communication i.e. 5G cellular networks. DCA techniques in such a HetNet would improve the efficiency to a great extent. With the development of Software Defined Mobile Networking (SDMN), the protocol-specific features of mobile networks for various radio access technologies can be carried out with software improving the functionality of network. Thus, the implementation of DCA techniques becomes less complex. In this paper, DCA in small cells with respect to three cases namely spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal allocation is proposed. The problem formulated for DCA is solved using integer linear programming (ILP) technique and the solution is an effective prediction based model to optimize the channel allocation problem. Simulation results show the performance for various number of available resources and number of cells for allocation.