Interference management in 5G and beyond networks: A comprehensive survey

Abstract

During the last decade, wireless data services have had an incredible impact on people’s lives in ways we could never have imagined. The number of mobile devices has increased exponentially and data traffic has almost doubled every year. Undoubtedly, the rate of growth will continue to be rapid with the explosive increase in demands for data rates, latency, massive connectivity, network reliability, and energy efficiency. In order to manage this level of growth and meet these requirements, the fifth-generation (5G) mobile communications network is envisioned as a revolutionary advancement combining various improvements to previous mobile generation networks and new technologies, including the use of millimeter wavebands (mm-wave), massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) multi-beam antennas, network densification, dynamic Time Division Duplex (TDD) transmission, and new waveforms with mixed numerologies. New revolutionary features including terahertz (THz) communications and the integration of Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) can further improve the performance and signal quality for future 6G networks. However, despite the inevitable benefits of all these key technologies, the heterogeneous and ultra-flexible structure of the 5G and beyond network brings non-orthogonality into the system and generates significant interference that needs to be handled carefully. Therefore, it is essential to design effective interference management schemes to mitigate severe and sometimes unpredictable interference in mobile networks. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of interference management in 5G and Beyond networks and discuss its future evolution. We start with a unified classification and a detailed explanation of the different types of interference and continue by presenting our taxonomy of existing interference management approaches. Then, after explaining interference measurement reports and signaling, we provide for each type of interference identified, an in-depth literature review and technical discussion of appropriate management schemes. We finish by discussing the main interference challenges that will be encountered in future 6G networks and by presenting insights on the suggested new interference management approaches, including useful guidelines for an AI-based solution. This review will provide a first-hand guide to the industry in determining the most relevant technology for interference management, and will also allow for consideration of future challenges and research directions.