On Interference Avoidance Through Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC) Based on OFDMA Mobile Systems

Abstract

Abstract-The widely accepted OFDMA air interface technology has recently been adopted in most mobile standards by the wireless industry. However, similar to other frequencytime multiplexed systems, their performance is limited by intercell interference. To address this performance degradation, interference mitigation can be employed to maximize the potential capacity of such interference-limited systems. This paper surveys key issues in mitigating interference and gives an overview of the recent developments of a promising mitigation technique, namely, interference avoidance through inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC). By using optimization theory, an ICIC problem is formulated in a multi-cell OFDMA-based system and some research directions in simplifying the problem and associated challenges are given. Furthermore, we present the main trends of interference avoidance techniques that can be incorporated in the main ICIC formulation. Although this paper focuses on 3GPP LTE/LTE-A mobile networks in the downlink, a similar framework can be applied for any typical multi-cellular environment based on OFDMA technology. Some promising future directions are identified and, finally, the state-of-the-art interference avoidance techniques are compared under LTEsystem parameters.Index Terms-ICIC, Inter-cell resource allocation, Selective interference avoidance, Selective frequency/power reuse.

Fair resource allocation for OFDMA multi-cell networks

“…Our optimization goal is to minimize the user flow rate variance, and improve network data throughput by means of reducing ICI. [23] summarizes different ICI coordination methods. However, these methods exchange indication signaling between cells, which is what we try to avoid here.…”

Scalable HetNet interference management and the impact of limited channel state information

“…To maximize spectral efficiency, then macro and femto base stations have to work in shared spectrum (or co-channel deployment), interfering with each other. Kosta et al [13], Kaimaletu et al [14] contain surveys of the most common ICIC techniques used in literature.…”

Distributed weighted sum-rate maximization with multi-cell uplink-downlink throughput duality

“…Thus, radio resource allocation with distributed coordinations among HeNBs is expected. Furthermore, as a promising technology, multi-antenna can improve the network throughput dramatically, while resulting in a more complex interference management problem [1][2][3]. Therefore, it is a challenging task to optimize the resource allocation in HeNB networks equipped with multiple antennas.…”