An Improved SINR Estimation Method for Heterogeneous Networks

Distributed resource management becomes a popular concept in next generation cellular network. It however also results in less information available for each eNB to make appropriate decisions. Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR), as one of the important inputs for eNBs when considering allocating appropriate resource blocks (RBs) to User Equipment (UE), is designed as the function of CQI (Channel Quality Indicator) reported from UE. However, too much signaling overhead and estimation error is induced with CQI mechanism. This paper presents an improved downlink SINR estimation method together with a corresponding resource allocation scheme for Low Power Nodes (LPNs) in Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets). Cognitive Radio (CR) is introduced to construct a distributed adaptive channel evaluation model. The work makes use of the Frequency Domain Packet Scheduling (FDPS) implementation in resource block level without CQI report from UEs. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can achieve considerable system performance improvement in OFDMA based HetNets.