Power tuning based load balancing in LTE-A relays using guided local search heuristic

Load balancing has been proven as a promising technique that enhances the throughput in Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) networks. In this paper, a new relay-assisted scheme is presented which uses relay node power tuning as a tool to address the problem of load balancing. The scheme aims at finding the global relay node power configuration which achieves optimal load balancing with minimal overall power consumption while meeting the users´ data rate requirements. Previous approaches either overlooked the effect of interference on load balancing or were concerned with joint optimization of coverage and load balancing which have conflicting objectives. This paper proposes a multi-objective formulation solved using a guided local search heuristic algorithm which considers the overlooked aspects of the previous work. Simulations show that the proposed scheme provides significant performance gains in both objectives.