Large Scale Cooperation in Cellular Networks with Non-uniform User Distribution

Roya E. REZAGAH
Gia Khanh TRAN
Kei SAKAGUCHI
Kiyomichi ARAKI
Satoshi KONISHI

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications   Vol.E97-B    No.11    pp.2512-2523
Publication Date: 2014/11/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1345
DOI: 10.1587/transcom.E97.B.2512
Type of Manuscript: PAPER
Category: Terrestrial Wireless Communication/Broadcasting Technologies
Keyword: 
large scale CoMP,  non-uniform user distribution,  dynamic cell structuring,  C-RAN,  system rate maximization,  

Full Text: PDF(1.9MB)>>
Buy this Article


Summary: 
In conventional wireless cellular networks, cell coverage is static and fixed, and each user equipment (UE) is connected to one or a few local base stations (BS). However, the users' distribution in the network area commonly fluctuates during a day. When there are congeries of users in some areas, conventional networks waste idle network resources in sparse areas. To address this issue, we propose a novel approach for cooperative cluster formation to dynamically transfer idle network resources from sparse cells to crowded cells or hotspots. In our proposed scheme, BS coverage is directed to hotspots by dynamically changing the antennas' beam angles, and forming large optimal cooperative clusters around hotspots. In this study, a cluster is a group of BSs that cooperatively perform joint transmission (JT) to several UEs. In this paper, a mathematical framework for calculation of the system rate of a cooperative cluster is developed. Next, the set of BSs for each cluster and the antennas' beam angles of each BS are optimized so that the system rate of the network is maximized. The trend of performance variation versus cluster size is studied and its limitations are determined. Numerical results using 3GPP specifications show that the proposed scheme attains several times higher capacity than conventional systems.