Dynamic clustering for multicell cooperative processing in mobile communications

Abstract

Multicell cooperative processing (MCP) has been recognized as a promising technique for enhancing the spectral efficiency of future wireless systems. However, MCP inevitably requires increased radio feedback and backhaul overhead. Therefore, only a limited number of base stations can cooperate for an affordable system complexity in practice. In this paper, we propose a novel dynamic clustering scheme for the cellular system incorporating MCP. The clusters are formed dynamically from users' point of view to minimize the co-channel interference, and are allowed to be overlapped. The objective of the clustering scheme is rate maximization of the cell-edge users. Compared with some conventional cooperation clustering schemes, the proposed scheme has proven to provide a good trade-off between user rates and overhead. Simulation results show that the user rates of the proposed scheme with a cluster consisting of two sectors can reach up to 95% of its upper bound.