Clustering based power saving algorithm for self-organized sleep mode in femtocell networks

A large-scale deployment of femtocell BSs (FBSs) causes the substantial energy consumption. One fairly intuitive way to minimize the energy consumption is to switch off the wireless air interface, or to keep FBSs in the energy saving mode for the most time while preserving the quality of service (QoS) experienced by users. Utilizing this concept, this paper proposes a clustering based power saving algorithm (CPSA) for self-organized sleep mode in femtocell networks. Firstly, CPSA builds a leader-member cluster framework, in which each FBS is either a FBS leader (FL) or a FBS member (FM). Then, the FL acts as an autonomous entity and is responsible for detecting active calls in the cluster coverage, while the FMs without the active user can entirely shut down pilot transmissions and the related processing all the time. So it is suited for self-organizing networks (SONs). With the practical LTE system parameters, simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms three prominent related schemes in terms of average energy consumption and accumulative interference time. Furthermore, the results provide some guidelines for deploying energy efficient femtocell networks.