Power control for data load balancing with coverage in dynamic femtocell networks

Abstract

We consider the load balancing and coverage problem of femtocell networks in indoor environment. We propose a novel framework exploiting the Voronoi diagram with respect to the radio propagation distance. Our initial power assignment scheme achieves maximal indoor coverage with minimized maximum required transmit power, which results in reduced interference. Our approach can adopt any radio propagation model to achieve more accurate coverage for an indoor environment with various obstacles. Time varying data traffic may cause unbalanced data load of base stations producing traffic overload. Our dynamic power control algorithm redistributes the data load by automatically adjusting transmit power levels according to data traffic estimation while preserving coverage. Moreover, we present an algorithm to cope with the dynamic deletion and insertion of femto base stations. Simulations show that the proposed scheme achieves better coverage, reduced interference, and good load balance compared to previous algorithms.