Multi-cell Interference Research Articles

Resource Allocation for Downlink Cellular OFDMA Systems—Part I: Optimal Allocation

In this pair of papers (Part I and Part II in this issue), we investigate the issue of power control and subcarrier assignment in a sectorized two-cell downlink OFDMA system impaired by multicell interference. As recommended for WiMAX, we assume that the first part of the available bandwidth is likely to be reused by different base stations (and is thus subject to multicell interference) and that the second part of the bandwidth is shared in an orthogonal way between the different base stations (and is thus protected from multicell interference). Although the problem of multicell resource allocation is nonconvex in this scenario, we provide in Part I the general form of the global solution. In particular, the optimal resource allocation turns out to be ?binary? in the sense that, except for at most one pivot-user in each cell, any user receives data either in the reused bandwidth or in the protected bandwidth, but not in both. The determination of the optimal resource allocation essentially reduces to the determination of the latter pivot-position.

Resource Allocation for Downlink Cellular OFDMA Systems—Part II: Practical Algorithms and Optimal Reuse Factor

In a companion paper (see ?Resource Allocation for Downlink Cellular OFDMA Systems-Part I: Optimal Allocation,? IEEE Trans. Signal Process., vol. 58, no. 2, pp. 720-734, Feb. 2010), we characterized the optimal resource allocation in terms of power control and subcarrier assignment, for a downlink sectorized OFDMA system impaired by multicell interference. In our model, the network is assumed to be one dimensional (linear) for the sake of analysis. We also assume that a certain part of the available bandwidth is likely to be reused by different base stations while that the other part of the bandwidth is shared in an orthogonal way between these base stations. The optimal resource allocation characterized in Part I is obtained by minimizing the total power spent by the network under the constraint that all users' rate requirements are satisfied. It is worth noting that when optimal resource allocation is used, any user receives data either in the reused bandwidth or in the protected bandwidth, but not in both (except for at most one pivot-user in each cell). We also proposed an algorithm that determines the optimal values of users' resource allocation parameters. As a matter of fact, the optimal allocation algorithm proposed in Part I requires a large number of operations. In the present paper, we propose a distributed practical resource allocation algorithm with low complexity. We study the asymptotic behavior of both this simplified resource allocation algorithm and the optimal resource allocation algorithm of Part I as the number of users in each cell tends to infinity. Our analysis allows to prove that the proposed simplified algorithm is asymptotically optimal, i.e., it achieves the same asymptotic transmit power as the optimal algorithm as the number of users in each cell tends to infinity. As a byproduct of our analysis, we characterize the optimal value of the frequency reuse factor. Simulations sustain our claims and show that substantial performance improvements are obtained when the optimal value of the frequency reuse factor is used.

Interference Management for Future Cellular OFDMA Systems Using Coordinated Multi-Point Transmission

Todays cellular systems reach their limits for data rate due to the continuously increasing amount of subscribers using wireless service for business purposes or in leisure time (smartphone effect). Thus, recent research focuses on concepts for interference management for cellular OFDMA systems. This paper addresses various techniques related to this topic, while considering the concepts with lowest complexity and backhaul costs as promising candidates to be applied first. Starting from interference canceling receivers over multi-user MIMO using fixed precoding to multi-cell interference estimation, which improves the precision of link adaptation, we discuss closed-loop cooperative transmit beamforming using multiple base stations grouped into a wireless distributed network (WDN), which is denoted as coordinated multi-point joint transmission in the 3GPP LTE-Advanced standardization. It is obvious, the more sophisticated these techniques are, the higher the demands for feedback and backhaul become. Performance results are provided by employing multi-cell simulations according to recommendations from 3GPP. In addition, feasibility of coordinated multi-point joint transmission is demonstrated in a real-time prototype setup, i.e. in the Berlin LTE-Advance Testbed.

Precoding Technique for Minimizing BER of MIMO-OFDM System Employing MLD under Multicell Co-channel Interference

This paper proposes a MIMO-OFDM precoder that can minimize a BER upper bound of the maximum likelihood detector (MLD) under a non-cooperative downlink multicell co-channel interference (CCI) environment. Since there is no cooperation among base stations (BSs), it is assumed that information on the interference can be estimated at a mobile station (MS) and then fed back to the desired BS for the precoder. The proposed scheme controls its precoding parameters under a transmit power constraint so as to minimize the BER upper bound, which is derived from the pairwise error probability (PEP) averaged with respect to CCI plus noise. Computer simulations demonstrate that the proposed precoder can effectively improve BER performance of cell edge users and is superior in terms of BER to the eigenmode and the minimum mean squared error (MMSE) precoded transmissions which aim to maximize the channel capacity and to minimize MSE, respectively.

Power allocation scheme for multicell interference coordination in OFDMA systems

To coordinate inter-cell interference, a multicell adaptive power allocation scheme is proposed for downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) cellular systems. This scheme uses the difference of the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) between the co-subchannels of adjacent cells to balance SINR for coordinating the transmit power in the co-subchannels. The scheme can improve edge user performance, reduce interference between the co-subchannels of adjacent cells and improve radio resource utility. Simulation results show that the scheme can balance system performance and ensure system throughput.

An Efficient Resource Allocation Strategy for Future Wireless Cellular Systems

Future mobile communication systems will be designed to support a wide range of data rates with complex quality of service matrix. It is becoming more challenging to optimize the radio resource management and maximise the system capacity whilst meeting the required quality of service from user's point of view. Traditional schemes have approached this problem mainly focusing on resources within a cell and to large extent ignoring effects of multi-cell architecture. This paper addresses the influence of multi-cell interference on overall radio resource utilisation and proposes a novel approach, setting a new direction for future research on resource scheduling strategies in a multi-cell system. It proposes a concept called load matrix (LM) which facilitates joint management of interference within and between cells for allocation of radio resources. Simulation results show significant improvement in the resource utilization and overall network performance. Using the LM strategy, average cell throughput can be increased as much as 30% compared to a benchmark algorithm. Results also show that maintaining cell interference within a margin instead of a hard target can significantly improve resource utilization.

Subcarrier Group Assignment for MC-CDMA Wireless Networks

Two interference-based subcarrier group assignment strategies in dynamic resource allocation are proposed for MC-CDMA wireless systems to achieve high throughput in a multicell environment. Least interfered group assignment (LIGA) selects for each session the subcarrier group on which the user receives the minimum interference, while best channel ratio group assignment (BCRGA) chooses the subcarrier group with the largest channel response-to-interference ratio. Both analytical framework and simulation model are developed for evaluation of throughput distribution of the proposed schemes. An iterative approach is devised to handle the complex interdependency between multicell interference profiles in the throughput analysis. Illustrative results show significant throughput improvement offered by the interference-based assignment schemes for MC-CDMA multicell wireless systems. In particular, under low loading conditions, LIGA renders the best performance. However, as the load increases BCRGA tends to offer superior performance.

Spectral Efficiency of CDMA Downlink Cellular Networks with Matched Filter

In this contribution, the performance of a downlink code division multiple access (CDMA) system with orthogonal spreading and multicell interference is analyzed. A useful framework is provided in order to determine the optimal base station coverage for wireless frequency selective channels with dense networks where each user is equipped with a matched filter. Using asymptotic arguments, explicit expressions of the spectral efficiency are obtained and provide a simple expression of the network spectral efficiency based only on a few meaningful parameters. Contrarily to a common misconception which asserts that to increase spectral efficiency in a CDMA network, one has to increase the number of cells, we show that, depending on the path loss and the fading channel statistics, the code orthogonal gain (due to the synchronization of all the users at the base station) can compensate and even compete in some cases with the drawbacks due to intercell interference. The results are especially realistic and useful for the design of dense networks.

Technologies and performance for non-line-of-sight broadband wireless access networks

This article presents emerging technologies for upcoming non-line-of-sight fixed or stationary broadband wireless access systems. We describe design trade-offs for overall maximization of the radio capacity and coverage of fixed wireless access (FWA) in multicell interference- and fading-prone environments. We characterize quantitatively the impact of key emerging radio technologies on the overall performance.

Performance and implementation of dynamic frequency hopping in limited-bandwidth cellular systems

We evaluate the performance of a previously proposed dynamic frequency hopping (DFH) when applied to cellular systems with a limited total bandwidth. We also illustrate a practical implementation for DFH deployment using network-assisted resource allocation (NARA). The performance evaluation is accomplished by system-level simulations of a system with 12 carriers and 1/1 frequency reuse, based on the EDGE-Compact specification. Voice-only circuit-switched operation is assumed. The fading channel, multicell interference, voice activity, and antenna sectorization are modeled. We present the performance of dynamic frequency hopping compared to random frequency hopping and fixed channel assignment by showing the distributions of the word error rates. The sensitivity to occupancy, Rayleigh fading assumptions, number of carriers, voice activity, and measurement errors are studied. We also compare the uplink and downlink performance. The results indicate that DFH can significantly improve the performance compared to random frequency hopping. For example, at a 2 % frame error rate with 90% coverage, the capacity improvement of DFH is almost 100% when compared with fixed channel assignment, and about 50% when compared to random frequency hopping. The amount of improvement for the uplink direction is smaller than the improvement for the downlink direction, especially for higher occupancies.

Performance Evaluation for Forward-Link Cellular DS-CDMA overFrequency-Selective Nakagami Multipath Fading Channels

The bit-error rate (BER) for a forward-link cellular direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) system is evaluated. This analysis takes into account the effects of multi-cell interference resulting from Nakagami multipath fading, frequency selectivity, path loss and mobile user spatial distribution. Exponentially decaying multipath intensity profile (MIP) is adopted in the model to investigate its significance on the overall performance. In order to evaluate the BER performance efficiently, saddlepoint integration (SPI) is applied in the analysis. By fixing the number of resolvable multipaths and varying the number of fingers for the RAKE receiver, it can be shown that the capacity of a DS-CDMA cellular system increases almost linearly with the number of RAKE fingers.

Reverse link interference modeling and outage analysis for DS/CDMA cellular systems

In this paper, we analyze multi-cell multi-user interference through a new approach. The area averaged probability density function (PDF) of interference power from one active user is evaluated. Differing from the distance membership determination, the statistical effect of hand-off is considered. The Gamma distribution is proposed to model the area averaged PDF of the interference power of an active user. An efficient method for evaluating system performance is developed. Differing from the Gaussian approximation, this method is very effective and accurate for both a large number and a small number of users. The performance of a CDMA cellular system with high quality requirements and mixed traffic is evaluated.