In-Network-Processing for Small Cell Cooperation in Dense Networks

In dense mobile network deployments, the cooperation of base stations in the uplink promises performance gains w.r.t. area throughput and power efficiency. In this paper, we propose the use of a distributed consensus-based estimation algorithm for the linear equalization of multiple user signals occupying the same resources. We will show that using an iterative process, the same estimation quality can be achieved as if a centralized joint detection of the signals was performed, and that with a limited number of iterations, a satisfactory bit error performance can be achieved.