Interference coordination for millimeter wave communications in 5G networks for performance optimization

Abstract

To address the increasing data rate demands for future wireless networks, a dense deployment of base stations or access points is the most promising approach; however, doing so may cause high intercell interference (ICI). Numerous interference coordination (IC) approaches have been proposed to reduce ICI. Conducting 5G communication on millimeter wave (mmWave) bands is more complex because of its higher propagation losses and greater attenuation variance, all of which depend on environment change. Massive antenna arrays with beamforming techniques can be used to overcome high propagation loss, reduce interference, deliver performance gains of coordination without a high overhead, and deliver high network capacity with multiplex transmitters. The central challenge of a massive antenna array that uses beamforming techniques is coordinating the users and beams for each transmitter within a large network. To address this challenge, we propose a novel two-level beamforming coordination approach that partitions a large network into clusters. At the intracluster level, this approach performs intracluster coordination similar to the user selection algorithms in a multiuser multiple input and multiple output (MU-MIMO); doing this maximizes the utility function or minimizes the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) function within a cluster. A dynamic time domain IC approach is employed at the intercluster level, collecting interference information for cluster-edge user equipment (UE) and allocating the UE dynamically among the clusters to reduce the intercluster interference for a switched-beam system (SBS). Simulation results show that the proposed two-level IC approach achieves a higher edge user performance or cell capacity than with the current uncoordinated/coordinated approaches.

Development Challenges of Millimeter‐Wave 5G Beamformers

“…In addition to this, suppression of inter-cell interference can be done using two-level beamforming coordination which is realizable by partitioning the network into small manageable clusters. In the small clusters, the standard user selection algorithms can be used to establish multi-user MIMO links (Wang et al, 2019). This helps in maximizing the utility function and minimizing the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio within a specific cluster.…”

“…BS transforms the antenna direction by focusing energy to the leading UAV and consequently enlarging the number of receivers per BS. A sub-clustering of users within a single fixed beamformer (as shown in (Wang et al, 2019)) is also helpful in mitigating the environmental effects in mmWave channels. If not considered appropriately, atmospheric effect can alter the measurements evaluated using systems like the one proposed in (Fernandez, Lopez and Andres, 2018).…”

A Matheuristic for Joint Optimal Power and Scheduling Assignment in DVB-T2 Networks

“…Notwithstanding the quite high number of parameters that characterize a transmitter and that can be configured, all works considering the WND focuses just on a subset of them. In particular, the vast majority of works include the setting of the power emission of transmitters and the assignment of served users to deployed transmitters as decision variables, since they constitute critical decision aspects in the design of a wireless network (see, for example, [7,26,27,34] related to DVB, [35,36] related to 5G, [23,37] related to FTTx, [38,39] related to mesh networks, [40,41] related to UMTS, [33,42] related to WiMAX, [43,44] related to WLANs and [13,14,[45][46][47][48] related to other kind of wireless network technologies).…”

Beamformer development challenges for 5G and beyond

“…Load on the codebook is generally reduced by further micromanaging the mmWave channel into smaller clusters. An example of a user selection algorithm that is usable for multiuser cellular systems is reported in [60]. Additional difficulty is that by sub-clustering the channel, signalto-noise-and-interference ratio will also start playing a role.…”