LFMTCN: A Green Ultra-Dense Multi-tier Small Cell Network Using Leader–follower Strategy

Abstract

Design of energy and spectrum-efficient multi-tier small cell network is an emerging research area. This paper has addressed the challenges of power optimization and interference mitigation in small cell based multi-tier network. We propose a macro–pico–femtocell and micro–pico–femtocell based leader–follower network, referred as leader follower based multi-tier cellular network, where picocells and femtocells form groups inside the macrocell and microcell. The picocell serves as leader and femtocells as followers in each pico–femtocell group. Frequency allocation for this network is also proposed. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed network has up to 3.58% less power consumption than the macro–pico–femtocell network. Simulation results also illustrate that using the proposed multi-tier network the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio for femtocell user is improved by 53.9–60.64% and 23.18–28.16% approximately than the macro–femtocell network and micro–femtocell network respectively.