A Novel Semi-Static Inter-Cell Interference Coordination Scheme for Cellular OFDMA Systems

In this paper, a novel semi-static inter-cell interference coordination scheme based on spectrum pool is proposed for cellular OFDMA systems. In the proposed scheme, the spectrum is divided into three partitions, called major subbands group, minor subbands group and spectrum pool group. The major subbands and the spectrum pool are used by all users in a cell and the minor subbands only can be used by cell center users. The proposed scheme consists of two stages, i.e. at the frequency planning stage, the eNB allocates the major subbands and the spectrum pool to cell edge users and the minor subbands to the cell center users according to variation of the cell edge traffic load; at the intra-cell scheduling stage, the cell edge users are scheduled based on the major subbands and the spectrum pool first, and then the cell center users are scheduled on the remaining resources. The proposed scheme not only enhances the cell edge throughput but also reduces the inter-cell signaling overhead and complexity. Simulation results and performance analysis validate the effectiveness and good performance of the proposed scheme.