Performance evaluation of inter-cell interference prediction in massive MIMO

Abstract

This paper presents inter-cell interference prediction in massive multiple input multiple output. The rapid demand for widespread multimedia services notwithstanding the deployment of 4G in Lagos, Nigeria and the urgent need to upgrade to 5G networks with downlink and uplink data capacities of not less than 300 and 60 Mbps, respectively for at least 95% penetration rate at any instantaneous time; there is a possibility of experiencing crosstalk and adjacent inter-cell interference within the receiving antennas. 5G inter-cell interference prediction scheme that employs LTE performance index using locally sourced data from Huawei Nigeria limited was presented. The performances of the currently deployed LTE network were evaluated by employing performance metrics such as uplink and downlink capacities and recommending a possible inter-cell interference mitigation technique to be implemented in the deployment of 5G network in Lagos. The identified key performance metrics used include over the air emulation, carrier to interference plus noise ratio, peak RLC throughput, coverage probability, and the map-based model. Hence, ICIC static coordination algorithm, which comprise NOICIC, Hard FFR, PFR, SFR and SFFR were analyzed. With static ICIC algorithm, the coverage probability was 78% for receiving more than 20 kbps, with cell-edge users using resources of centre-users and with edge-users of neighbouring cells using different resource block; therefore reducing interference and consequently increasing throughput when there is static ICIC coordination. Implementing the static ICIC schemes on the 5G network when deployed in Lagos will improve the average downlink throughput over what is currently attainable with the 4G network in use at the moment