An interference-aware resource allocation scheme for self-organizing heterogeneous networks

Abstract

In heterogeneous networks of low power Pico Base Station (PBS) overlaid with Macro Base Station (MBS), cell range expansion (CRE) which add a positive bias in PBS for cell association is proposed to offload user equipments (UEs) to PBSs. In this way UEs in CRE region that associated to PBS with weak signal power may experience strong cross-tier interference from MBS. To manage this interference, almost blank subframe (ABS) is proposed which not allowed MBS to transmit data in ABS by coordinating MBS and PBS in time domain. In ABS, the number of ABS subframes is subject to constraints on the MBSs for intercell fairness. In addition, it significantly drops throughput of MBS by completely blank on the ABS. To overcome these drawbacks, an interference-aware autonomous resource allocation scheme for Heterogeneous Networks is proposed in this paper. Each PBS independently configure the Interference Aware Subframes (IASFs) based on the requirement of victim UEs in CRE region, while MBSs is not involved. In IASFs, a PBS subchannel and transmit power allocation algorithm is proposed to suppress interference for neighboring BSs and maximum total throughput. It is verified by simulation that the proposed strategy provides significant throughput gain compared with the existing interference avoidance schemes.