User partitioning based resource allocation and interference coordination in heterogeneous networks

Cell coverage and network capacity are two major challenges for the evolving 4G cellular wireless communication networks. Hierarchical layering of cells with macro base stations coexisting with low-power base stations in a service area has been investigated as a promising technique for enhancing the coverage extension and reducing the transmit power consumption, which has emerged as a candidate for green communications. However, the cell splitting gain can only be achieved when both inter-layer and co-tier interference are properly handled. In this paper, a basic co-channel heterogeneous network (HetNet) deployment scenario with two cell layers is considered. The scheduler groups all the user equipments (UEs) into three sets according to the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) and the factor R_I. Furthermore, the total spectrum band is divided into three parts based on the size of user sets and the two layers both reduce the transmission power in some specific bands, so that contributes to interference mitigation and throughput enhancement. Simulation results show that the proposed method can not only promote the energy efficiency (EE) but also enhance system performance in terms of both cell edge users´ SINR and system capacity.