Network assisted small cell discovery in multi-layer and mmWave networks

With the exponentially increasing capacity demands anticipated in next generation wireless networks, densifying the network using cmW and mmW small cells supporting high bandwidths is seen to be the trend in 5G networks. Such ultra-dense deployment of cells would also lead to a higher amount of power consumption, from the UE and network perspective, due to the increased measurement requirements and higher number of nodes, which consume more power. In this paper, we consider a dense heterogeneous small cell network, where mechanisms are proposed to enable UE power consumption optimizations by conducting inter-frequency measurement when the probability of connecting to a mmW cell is high. Network power consumption is optimized by activating the mmW layer only when there are UEs in the proximity. Based on the performance evaluations done on the proposed mechanism, significant power savings both from UE and network perspective are observed.