Cooperative interference mitigation and handover management for heterogeneous cloud small cell networks

Heterogeneous small cell networks have attracted much attention for satisfying users´ explosive data traffic requirements. The heterogeneous cloud small cell network (HCSNet), which combines cloud computing and a heterogeneous small cell network, will likely play an important role in 5G mobile communication networks. However, with massive deployment of small cells, co-channel interference and handover management are two important problems in an HCSNet, especially for cell edge users. In this article, we examine the problems of cooperative interference mitigation and handover management in an HCSNet. A network architecture is described to combine cloud radio access network with small cells. An effective CoMP clustering scheme using affinity propagation is adopted to mitigate cell edge users´ interference. A low-complexity handover management scheme is presented, and its signaling procedure is analyzed in an HCSNet. Numerical results show that with the proposed network architecture, CoMP clustering and handover management schemes can significantly increase the capacity of HCSNet while maintaining users´ quality of service.