Grouping based inter-cell interference coordination in LTE-A dense small-cell networks

Deployment of small cells in a cellular network has emerged as a cost-effective way of supporting exponentially increasing demand of wireless data services. However, an unplanned small cell deployment with full frequency reuse could bring severe inter-cell interference. In this study, an enhanced small cell grouping based inter-cell interference control has been presented for dense small cell networks (SCN) in LTE-Advanced. Specifically, we divide the small cells into different coordinated multi-point processing (CoMP) groups according to the mutual interference with adjacent small cells. Within a CoMP group, multi-cell cooperation is implemented for intra-cell interference cancellation, while for different small cell groups, we propose a shifted frequency scheduling with dynamic power control to reduce the inter-group interference. The performance gain is evaluated and verified in a system level simulator.