Carrier Aggregation Based Interference Coordination for LTE-A Macro-Pico HetNet

The intensive downlink (DL) inter-cell interference created by cell range expansion (CRE) of picocells is an urgent problem needing to be solved under macro-pico heterogeneous network (HetNet) scenario. A promising approach is taking advantage of additional degree of freedom brought by carrier aggregation (CA). However, poorly arranged carrier configurations or interference coordination schemes can lead to a degradation of system overall performance. In this paper, we propose a novel dynamic interference coordination scheme based on carrier aggregation to alleviate the DL interference from macrocells to users located in the cell range expansion area. Novel carrier configuration pattern and dynamic power control scheme based on price algorithm are applied to mitigate detrimental interference to picocell-edge users and improve the availability of macrocells. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can boost the picocell-edge throughput significantly while ameliorating the overall system throughput.