Decentralized Iterative User Association Method for (p,α)-Proportional Fair-Based System Throughput Maximization in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

Kenichi HIGUCHI  Yasuaki YUDA  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E100-B   No.8   pp.1323-1333
Publication Date: 2017/08/01
Publicized: 2017/02/08
Online ISSN: 1745-1345
DOI: 10.1587/transcom.2016FGP0010
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Radio Access Technologies for 5G Mobile Communications System)
Category: Wireless Communication Technologies
Keyword: 
heterogeneous cellular networks,  user association,  (p,α)-proportional fairness,  

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Summary: 
This paper proposes a new user association method to maximize the downlink system throughput in a cellular network, where the system throughput is defined based on (p,α)-proportional fairness. The proposed method assumes a fully decentralized approach, which is practical in a real system as complicated inter-base station (BS) cooperation is not required. In the proposed method, each BS periodically and individually broadcasts supplemental information regarding its bandwidth allocation to newly connected users. Assisted by this information, each user calculates the expected throughput that will be obtained by connecting to the respective BSs. Each user terminal feeds back the metric for user association to the temporally best BS, which represents a relative increase in throughput through re-association to that BS. Based on the reported metrics from multiple users, each BS individually updates the user association. The proposed method gives a general framework for optimal user association for (p,α)-proportional fairness-based system throughput maximization and is especially effective in heterogeneous cellular networks where low transmission-power pico BSs overlay a high transmission-power macro BS. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method maximizes the system throughput from the viewpoint of the given (p,α)-proportional fairness.