Experimental Performance Evaluation and Analysis of LAA and Wi-Fi Coexistence in the Unlicensed Spectrum

Abstract

To alleviate the problem of scarce spectrum resources and meet the ever-increasing of mobile broadband data traffic demands, Licensed Assisted Access-Long Term Evolution (LAA-LTE), operating in the unlicensed spectrum, is a promising solution. Considering that the unlicensed spectrum is shared by a few incumbent systems, such as Wi-Fi, one main target is to guarantee the friendly and harmonious coexistence of LTE with other wireless systems in the unlicensed spectrum. In this paper, an experimental testing platform is built to model the realistic environment. Supplementary downlink (SDL) and Cell ON/OFF mechanism are mainly investigated to verify the fair coexistence between LAA and Wi-Fi in the unlicensed spectrum. Meanwhile, the performance of LAA and Wi-Fi coexistence is evaluated by many experimental tests. Numerical experimental results show that SDL mechanism has a relatively friendly and harmonious coexistence between LAA and Wi-Fi only in the sparse scenario while Cell ON/OFF mechanism is more effective in LAA and Wi-Fi coexistence scenario than SDL.