Frequency Block-Dependent Online Probabilistic Activation Control of Base Stations in Heterogeneous Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel frequency block-dependent online probabilistic activation control of base stations (BSs) in heterogeneous networks where low transmission-power pico-BSs are overlaid onto the coverage of a high-transmission-power macro-BS. The aim of the proposed method in this paper is to increase the system throughput within the system coverage using adaptive activation/deactivation of BSs depending on the location of the BSs and user terminals. By defining multiple frequency blocks in the overall system bandwidth and performing activation control on a per frequency block basis, we achieve an inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) effect in addition to the overall reduction in inter-cell interference. The proposed method does not rely on complicated inter-BS cooperation. It uses inter-BS cooperation only to share the temporal system throughput observed for the entire system coverage. Based on the shared temporal system throughput information, each BS independently performs online activation control for the respective frequency blocks in a probabilistic manner. We also investigate an iterative algorithm to improve the convergence performance of the proposed method. Computer simulation results, in which the mobility of the user terminals is taken into account, show the effectiveness of the proposed method.