On the coordination of base stations in ultra dense cellular networks

Abstract

Ultra dense networks (UDNs) allow for efficient spatial reuse of the spectrum, giving rise to substantial capacity and power gains. However, recent findings have demonstrated that the reduction of inter-site distances after a certain threshold, has a detrimental effect on the network performance. In such cases, interference mitigation strategies to counteract the effect of primarily the line of sight (LOS) interference are imperative. In this course, the present paper investigates a minimum coordination strategy among immediate neighbors. The adopted scheme realizes the interference mitigation objective, enhancing system capacity, while being implementable in practice. Building upon this scheme, the present paper provides tractable closed form expressions for the downlink (DL) ergodic capacity of a reference user under the examined coordination scheme. The analysis is performed for a scenario consisting of base stations (BSs) whose positions follow a Poisson point process of a given spatial density. The tractability and accuracy of the derived expressions renders them ideal for quantifying the performance of additional coordination strategies and for revealing trends in complex optimization problems. Thus, constituting a valuable tool for network operators, toward assessing different interference mitigation techniques and coordination schemes in UDNs.