Analysis of cell range extension and a bias configuration strategy in dense small cell networks

Cell range extension (CRE) has been used as a method to extend the coverage of small cells and help offload macro cell users to small cells by adding a cell specific offset (CSO) to small cells in heterogeneous network deployment. However, previous literatures only considered CSO setting in sparse small cell networks (SCN) deployment where the number of small cells is relatively small. In this paper, we have studied the influences of different CSO values in SCN environment with a very dense deployment of small cells and analyze CSO value setting preference in this scenario. A bias setting algorithm has been proposed to adjust the CSO so as to alter the coverage area of SCNs to achieve the optimal average user throughput. Simulation results indicate that this method can achieve a better average user throughput in networks with different densities of small cells.