Pareto Optimal SINR Scheduling for Femto-Cell Deployment in Wireless Networks

In this paper, Pareto Femto-Cell Scheduling (PFCS), a novel scheduling mechanism for randomly deployed femto-cells, is presented. Here, the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) targets of femto-users are adapted such that the sufficient conditions for Pareto optimal power control (POPC) are fulfilled. Furthermore, interference from full bandwidth users is managed such that as many mobile stations (MSs) as possible can transmit. Due to the random nature of femto-base station (FBS) deployment, interference graphs are used to group femto-cells (and hence, users) such that target spectral efficiencies can be achieved at Pareto optimum power. Simulation results show that PFCS achieves significant system capacity gains over other SINR-target-based power allocation techniques, while maximising coverage in dense mobile environments. Furthermore, substantial power savings can be achieved.