Interference coordination and resource allocation in dense small cell networks

Densification of the radio access network and massive connectivity are envisaged to significantly increase the capacity of future radio access networks, well beyond 4G capabilities. This comes at the price of a harsher interference environment and an increased complexity of radio resource management (RRM), to the extent that today´s RRM protocols may no longer be efficient. In this article we propose an inter-cell interference coordination mechanism that departs from the conventional concept of trading cell-centre spectral efficiency for cell-edge spectral efficiency, but rather aims at improving spectral efficiency in the entire service area. This is achieved by coordinating and optimizing access point transmission blanking on a fast time-scale while scheduling mobile stations in the direction of least interference. Simulation results indicate that the spectral efficiency can effectively be improved over the entire service area, with up to 200% increase of cell-edge users capacity and an increased average network capacity up to 30% compared to traditional reuse-1 schemes.