OFDM-based Interference Alignment in Single-Antenna Cellular Wireless Networks

Abstract

Interference alignment (IA) is widely regarded as a promising interference management technique in wireless networks. Despite its rapid advances in cellular networks, most results of IA are limited to information-theoretic exploration or physical-layer signal design. Little progress has been made so far to advance IA in cellular networks from a networking perspective. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap by studying IA in large-scale cellular networks. For the uplink, we propose an OFDM-based IA scheme and prove its feasibility at the physical layer by showing that all data streams in the IA scheme can be transported free of interference. Based on the IA scheme, we develop a cross-layer IA optimization framework that can fully translate the benefits of IA to throughput gain in cellular networks. Furthermore, we show that the IA optimization problem in the downlink can be solved in the exactly same way as that in the uplink. Simulation results show that our OFDM-based IA scheme can significantly increase the user throughput and the throughput gain increases with user density in the network.