Cooperative strategies combination for uplink multi-cell networks under limited backhaul

In cellular wireless networks, base station (BS) cooperation is a promising technique to realize high spectral efficiency, whose potential gain, however, is restricted by the backhaul network. In this paper, we consider combining different decentralized cooperative strategies to fully utilize the limited backhaul. Firstly, the impact of limited backhaul capacity on different cooperative strategies is modeled. Then, we develop a analytical framework that gives a mathematical expression for the combination idea. Afterwards, we consider the establishment of the combination to fully exploit the backhaul capacity as well as the wireless channel realizations, which is a scheduling problem consisting of strategy selection and backhaul capacity allocation. A heuristic algorithm with polynomial time complexity is proposed. Finally, the validity of the combination idea and the proposed algorithm are confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations.