Integrated scheduling and interference coordination in cellular OFDMA networks

Abstract

\n The currently emerging 802.16e (WiMax) and 3GPP Long Term Evolution\n (LTE) cellular systems are based on Orthogonal Frequency Division\n Multiple Access (OFDMA). OFDMA suffers from heavy inter-cell\n interference if neighboring base stations use the same frequency\n range. One possible approach to solve this issue is the application\n of beamforming antennas in combination with interference\n coordination (IFCO) mechanisms between base stations. In this paper,\n we trace the problem of IFCO back to the graph coloring problem and\n investigate the achievable resource utilization of the interference\n coordinated system. We develop a heuristic that allows the\n combination of arbitrary scheduling algorithms with the IFCO\n mechanism. This allows an efficient utilization of the radio\n system's frequency resources while still obeying scheduling\n constraints, such as Quality of Service requirements. Finally, we\n study the trade-off between fairness and the total system\n throughput.\n