Single-cell cluster for high capacity narrowband cellular systems

Since wideband systems can operate with single cell clusters they outperform existing narrowband systems in providing capacity. Current narrowband systems typically operate with cluster sizes of three or seven cells. In this work, we propose joint maximum likelihood (JML) multiuser detection as a means to reduce the cluster size and approach the capacity of wideband systems. To our knowledge, this is the first time a single cell cluster has been achieved in narrowband systems. Unlike previous work, in this research, ML detection is performed jointly on the desired user and a few of the other-cell users in the system which are received with the highest signal power at the desired user´s base station. Due to the selection technique, the computation is kept manageable, while the performance of the single cell cluster is improved to match that of the conventional system