Interference mitigation for multi-carrier relay-enhanced networks

Relaying is a technique introduced recently to cellular systems such as LTE-Advanced or mobile WiMAX. It is designed especially for improving performance of users experiencing poor radio conditions towards traditional macro base stations, e.g. users located at cell-edge areas. In this paper, performance of relay nodes operated in a multi-carrier system is investigated. The multi-carrier operation is typically not considered for relay nodes, thus not well studied yet. Procedures for detecting high inter-relay interference and its mitigation by coordinated carrier allocation are proposed here. The conducted analysis shows that by using the proposed procedures capacity of a relay-enhanced network can be increased by 10% compared to a network without interference mitigation solutions implemented.