Modeling and performance analysis of Wi-Fi networks coexisting with LTE-U

Abstract

In order to cope with the exponential growth of mobile traffic, mobile operators need to access more spectrum resources. LTE in unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U) has been proposed to extend the usual operation of LTE in licensed spectrum to cover also unlicensed spectrum. However, this extension poses significant challenges especially regarding the coexistence between LTE-U and legacy systems like Wi-Fi. In case of LTE-U adopts Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM) schemes to share the spectrum with Wi-Fi, we expect performance degradations of Wi-Fi networks. In this paper, we quantify the impact of TDM schemes on Wi-Fi performance in a coexistence scenario. We provide detailed analytical models using two different random walk approaches to compute the probability of collision faced by Wi-Fi stations and their throughput performance. Besides, we derive the performance results using an exponential approximation which shows its insufficiency to capture the exact behavior. We implement the coexistence in the NS3 simulator and we show that the models estimate accurately the collision probability and the throughput experienced by Wi-Fi. The models are then used to study and compare different coexistence schemes showing for instance that the Wi-Fi frame size has a non-negligible impact on the performance of Wi-Fi users.