Interference mitigation by distributed beam forming optimization

Abstract

Inter-cell interference is a major issue in OFDMA networks. One approach to reduce the amount of interference is to use beam forming antennas. Further interference mitigation is achieved if neighbor base stations coordinate the directions of their beams. This paper presents a novel distributed interference coordination algorithm using main-lobe steering beam formers. Our algorithm does not require any explicit signaling between base stations. Also, it does not require any additional channel measurements to be signaled to the base stations besides those already performed for basic operation. Our evaluations show that significant performance gains can be achieved even with non-greedy traffic.