Application of coordinated beam selection in heterogeneous LTE-advanced networks

Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) techniques and heterogeneous wireless networks are two enablers to achieve improvements in data rate both for average as well as cell-edge users. We present a general CoMP technique based on coordinated beam selection and apply this technique in a heterogeneous wireless network where a hexagonal layout of macro base stations is overlaid with clusters of femto cells with closed subscriber group functionality. Without coordination, this scenario can be extremely challenging to mobile users that are located in the vicinity of the femto cells but are not allowed to connect to them. We show that the proposed CoMP technique leads to significant improvements for these users.