Full-duplex based successive interference cancellation in heterogeneous networks

Abstract

This paper studies the mitigation of cross-tier inter-cell interference (ICI) generated by a macro base station to a small-cell user equipment (SUE) in heterogeneous networks. A full-duplex (FD) based successive ICI cancellation (SIC) scheme, called fSICIC, is devised by applying FD technique at the small-cell base station (SBS). The basic idea of the fSICIC is to let the SBS send the desired signal and forward the overheard cross-tier ICI simultaneously to the SUE, where the forwarded ICI is controlled to enhance the ICI at the SUE to facilitate SIC. We first investigate the feasibility of the fSICIC, and then optimize the fSICIC to maximize the data rate of the SUE. Simulation results demonstrate the advantages of the fSICIC on mitigating cross-tier ICI, especially for strong ICI.