Optimal cell selection scheme in Femtocell networks using bacterial foraging optimization algorithm

Heterogeneous networks (HetNets) composed of macrocells and small cells are expected to improve the transmission performance of users significantly. Designing efficient resource allocation schemes, specifically, bandwidth allocation and power allocation schemes for HetNets is of particular importance for it may affect user quality of service (QoS) and network performance severely. In this paper, we consider the resource allocation problem of a HetNet composed of a macrocell and a number of femtocells and propose a resource characteristic and user QoS oriented bandwidth and power allocation algorithm for the femto base stations (FBSs) which share spectrum with the macro base station. By taking into account the service requirements of the femto user equipments (FUEs) and the bandwidth resource characteristics of the network, various bandwidth resource allocation schemes are proposed. Particularly, in the case of slightly insufficient bandwidth resource, we propose a bankruptcy game based bandwidth resource allocation algorithm for the FBSs, and solve the bandwidth allocation problem by means of Shapley value method. To stress the tradeoff between data rate and power consumption, we examine the energy efficiency of the FBSs and formulate the power allocation problem as a multi-objective optimization problem with the objectives of maximizing the energy efficiency of all the FBSs. The optimal power allocation strategy can be obtained by solving the optimization problem via ideal point method and generic algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

In two-tier femtocell networks, the femtocell users (FUs) can be admitted to the femto base stations (FBSs) provided that the interference to the primary users (PUs) is no higher than the defined thresholds. Moreover, several FBSs may require different quality of service (QoS) with different payments. This paper proposes a method to obtain from maximally achievable revenue from FBSs to the required QoS. It also proposes an efficient QoS aware admission algorithm which is compared with other schemes, such as minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) removal algorithm (MSRA) and random SU removal algorithm (RSRA). Presented QoS aware admission algorithm can achieve a much higher revenue with required QoS. In addition, the proposed algorithm is evaluated by the simulation experiments.

We consider the fairness problem of outage probability balancing based on statistical channel state information (CSI) in closed-access femtocell networks where multiple subchannels are shared among macro and femto user equipments. We aim to maximize a utility function of outage probabilities for each femto user equipment (FUE) in the network under a macro user equipment (MUE) outage constraint. In light of rate requirement for each FUE, we jointly optimize the power allocation for both FUEs and MUEs as well as the rate allocation for FUE in each sub-channels. Using successive convex approximation, we develop a centralized algorithm to iteratively tackle a series of geometric programming problems. For base-stations connected through back-haul, we further design a distributed algorithm to update optimization variables locally through message passing.

Densely deployed femtocells in heterogeneous networks (HetNets) improve the quality-of-service (QoS) and quality-of-experience (QoE) for both next-generation networks and end users, respectively. However, users near the femtocell edge, i.e., femto edge users (FEUs), which are far away from the Femto base station (FBS) may receive a low signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR). Moreover, due to the distributed and dynamic nature of HetNets, femtocells may not resist various eavesdropping attacks from different attackers. Thus, it is essential to ensure the wireless channel's secrecy through which FEUs communicate with FBS since they may face eavesdropping attacks and may have low SINR and achievable data rates. Aiming to enhance the secrecy rate of femtocells, in this article, we formulate a joint optimization problem of beamforming vectors, artificial noise (AN), and power control for terahertz (THz)-enabled femtocells. Addressing this non-convex optimization problem is challenging due to the system's complexity and dynamic nature of FEUs. Thus, we translate the optimization problem into a multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) problem using the Markov decision process (MDP). Then, to solve the MDP with continuous action space, two deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based schemes, i.e., <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient-based Secrecy Maximization (DDPG-SM)</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Asynchronous-Advantage-Actor-Critic based Secrecy Maximization (A3C-SM)</i> are proposed to maximize the secrecy rate of femtocells. The secrecy rate performance of the proposed schemes is compared and analyzed with Advantage-Actor-Critic (A2C) and state-of-the-art Perfect Secrecy Rate Maximization (PSRM) schemes. Simulation results show that the proposed <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">A3C-SM</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DDPG-SM</i> schemes achieve 37.73% and 22.64% better average secrecy rate in comparison to the PSRM scheme. Also, <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">A3C-SM</i> scheme outperforms all other <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DDPG-SM</i> , A2C, and PSRM schemes in terms of average secrecy rate, received SINR, and energy-efficiency of femtocells.

In order to offload base station (BS) traffic and to enhance efficiency of spectrum, operators can activate many Device-to-Device (D2D) pairs or links in LTE networks. This increases the overall spectral efficiency because the same Resource Blocks (RBs) are used across cellular UEs (CUEs) (i.e., all UEs connected to BS for both C-Plane and D-plane communication) and D2D links (i.e., where the UEs are connected to BS only for C-plane communication). However, significant interference problems can be caused by D2D communications as the same RBs are being shared. In our work, we address this problem by proposing a novel scheduling algorithm, Efficient Scheduling and Power control Algorithm for D2Ds (ESPAD), which reuses the same RBs and tries to maximize the overall network throughput without affecting the CUEs throughput. ESPAD algorithm also ensures that Signal to Noise plus Interference Ratio (SINR) for each of the D2D links is maintained above a certain predefined threshold. The aforementioned properties of ESPAD algorithm makes sure that the CUEs do not experience very high interference from the D2Ds. It is observed that even when the SINR drop (i.e., maximum permissible drop in SINR of CUEs) is as high as 10 dB, there is no drastic decrease in CUEs throughput (only 3.78%). We also compare our algorithm against other algorithms and show that D2D throughput improves drastically without undermining CUEs throughput.

The second part of the study of beamforming issues, based on positioning in ultra-dense millimeter wave radio access networks, is devoted to the formalization and software implementation of a complex simulation model of the functioning of a set of directional radio links. Each directional radio link between a base station (gNodeB – gNB), equipped with an antenna array, and a user equipment (UE), operating in omnidirectional mode, is formed according to the location of the UE, known at the gNB. The set of gNB→UE directional radio links, simultaneously operating in a common frequency range, is studied as a set of traffic beams, that implement space division multiple access (SDMA). Spatial multiplexing is implemented through three-dimensional beamforming at the gNB and makes it possible to compensate for propagation losses and high levels of interference. In the first part of the study, it was shown that the problem of practical implementation of SDMA in ultra-dense radio access networks is a significant (tens of dB) spread in the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR), depending on the arrangement of two devices. The purpose of this study is to establish the dependence of SINR on 1) the beamwidth of the gNB sector in the direction of the user equipment in the radio link of the signal of interest (SOI); 2) uncertainty of the UE location; 3) interference from radio links of signal not of interest (SNOI): a) within its sector, b) other sectors of its cell and c) other cells in the network. The simulation model developed and implemented in software in this work for the first time made it possible to establish the interdependence of the UE positioning error factors and the required width of the traffic beam for its service. In particular, it was found, that as the positioning error decreases from 10 to 1 m, the required beam width in the horizontal and vertical planes narrows to 3 °, which makes it possible to increase the SINR to 25 dB. A simultaneous transmission multiplexing study showed that for 64 spatially multiplexed UEs, as the cell size increases from 20 to 300 m, the SINR increases by approximately 30 dB, subject to a beamwidth constraint of 3°. Unlike similar studies, in this model, the contribution from interference from simultaneously operating traffic beams within its sector, other sectors of its cell and other cells in the network is shown separately for the first time, which allows to differentiate the origin of interference and use scientifically based beamwidth control for their compensation.

Recently, the use of LTE in the unlicensed spectrum has gained a lot of attention to address bandwidth crunch. Due to restriction on the transmission power in the unlicensed spectrum, LTE-U/LAA cells will get deployed mostly inside residential and office buildings to provide high data rates for indoor User Equipments (UEs). The UEs with high Signal-to-Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) experience good throughput, but the SINR decreases significantly due to walls and other obstacles that are present in the communication path. The coverage difference of licensed and unlicensed spectrum leads to different SINRs so, efficient placement of LAA Base Stations (BSs) inside the buildings is very crucial for attaining desirable SINR for the indoor UEs. Our primary objective is to find the optimal number of LAA/LTE-U BSs with minimum SINR requirements in the unlicensed band, and the secondary objective is to maximize the minimum SINR inside the building in the licensed band with power control. To do this, we formulate an optimization model (MinLF) to find the minimum number of LAA/LTE-U BSs along with their positions in indoor scenarios which resulted in Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem. Further, to maximize the minimum SINR in the licensed spectrum, we formulate MinLPower model to find the optimal transmission power of each LTE-U/LAA cell inside the building which resulted in Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming (MINLP) problem. Our proposed models achieve optimal placement with a maximum energy saving of 88% compared to the maximum power scheme.

Distributed games for coordinated coalition formation in femtocell networks

Driven by the emerging demands of enhancing the indoor coverage, the network capacity and users’ service experience, small scaled femtocell networks will be implemented extensively in home, office and hotspots, which can provide substantial benefits for both operators and users, such as the capital expenditures (CAPEX) and the operational expenditures (OPEX) reduction, the easy plug-and-play (PnP) deployment. Due to users’ random-deployed manner indoors, femto base station (FBS) should have cognitive abilities, such as the position awareness, the automatic parameter tuning and the learning ability, in order to self-optimize its indoor coverage and minimize the unexpected interference outdoors. In contrast to the traditional static power allocation algorithm, the FBS has applied the dynamic power allocation scheme to minimize the interference to macro base station (MBS) and macro user equipment (MUE) by considering the path loss under different wall penetration conditions. Based on the position awareness ability, the optimal coverage radii for FBS indoors are proposed and proved by closed-form formulas at typical positions, which were not considered before. To further enable the intelligent coverage self-optimization for the random-deployed FBS indoors, a joint dynamic power allocation and antenna pattern selection scheme has been proposed based on the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with training and self-tuning abilities. Numerous results prove both the effectiveness and the accuracy of the proposed coverage self-optimization scheme for the random-deployed femtocell networks.KeywordsCognitive Femtocell NetworkArtificial Neural NetworkCoverage Self-optimization

In this paper, we study uplink channel selection in a system where a macro base station (MBS) and a number of cognitive femto base stations (FBSs) share the same spectrum to serve their intended users with quality of service (QoS) requirements. In this system, the MBS may experience significant aggregate interference when multiple FBSs select the same channel to serve their FUs. An FBS also experiences strong interference from nearby femtocells if the same channel is utilized by adjacent FBSs. We investigate how to coordinate the channel selection at FBSs to reduce the interference experienced at the MBS and FBSs. We propose a cluster-based coordination mechanism where the operator groups the set of FBSs into clusters, and FBSs in the same cluster can utilize a set of channels simultaneously without violating the QoS requirements. To find the desired clusters, we employ a graph-theoretic approach and propose an efficient FBS clustering scheme. Simulation results show that the proposed coordination mechanism achieves a better performance compared to the channel selection scheme without coordination.

In this paper, we investigate link adaption in massive Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output(MIMO) system, where the base station is equipped with a large number of antennas. Specifically for the linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) receiver at the base station, the achievable ergodic rate is used to calculate channel quality indicator (CQI) for each user equipment (UE). We propose a rate calculation method based on the free deterministic equivalent, which relies on the statistical channel state information (CSI). The proposed method has much lower computational complexity than the conventional link adaption method such as exponential effective signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) mapping (EESM). Simulation results show that the the spectral efficiency obtained by the proposed method can approach almost the same level as EESM, while much lower computational complexity is needed.

In the first part of the thesis we investigate bandwidth allocation in next generation cellular systems employing relays similar to LTE advanced systems with type-I relays. We jointly optimize the bandwidth and power usage under constraints on required rate, bandwidth and transmit power. We study scenarios wherein, the relay acts as a forwarder for multiple User Equipments (UEs/users) in both uplink and/or downlink. This includes scenarios when the relay has its own data to send along with forwarding the data of other users. We examine the weighted power minimization problem for relaying with multiple users. We also show specifi c results with N user scenario and also single user case in order to understand how the bandwidth and power are allocated. Numerical evaluations with N users on a three sector LTE-A cell employing Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) indicate that power savings of at least 3 dB can be achieved by optimizing over both bandwidth and power. Base stations with a large number of transmit antennas have the potential to serve a large number of users simultaneously at higher rates. They also promise a lower power consumption due to coherent combining at the receiver. However, the receiver processing in the uplink relies on the channel stimates which are known to su ffer from pilot contamination. In the second part of the thesis, we perform an uplink large system analysis of multi-cell multi-antenna system when the receiver employs a matched fi ltering and MMSE fi ltering with a pilot contaminated estimate. We find the asymptotic Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) as the number of antennas and number of users per base station grow large while maintaining a fixed ratio. To do this, we make use of the similarity of the uplink received signal in a multi-antenna system to the representation of the received signal in CDMA systems. The asymptotic SINR expression for both matched fi lter and the MMSE fi lter explicitly captures the e ffect of pilot contamination and that of interference averaging. This also explains the SINR performance of receiver processing schemes at di fferent regimes such as instances when the number of antennas are comparable to number of users as well as when antennas exceed greatly the number of users. Specifi cally, we explore the scenario where the number of users being served are comparable to the number of antennas at the base station. It is seen that MMSE fi lter is capable of suppressing the in-cell interference and that the interference power due to pilot contamination is the same as in a matched fi lter with a pilot contaminated estimate. We find the expression for the amount of interference suppression obtained using an MMSE filter which is an important factor when there are signi ficant number of users in the system as compared to the number of antennas. We validate the asymptotic expression through simulations and compare with an MMSE fi lter with a perfect estimate. Simulation results for achievable rate is close to theory for even a 10-antenna base station with 3 or more users per cell. In a typical set up, in terms of the five percentile SIR, the MMSE fi lter is shown to provide signifi cant gains over matched fi ltering and is within 5 dB of MMSE fi lter with perfect channel estimate. We also show that the achievable rates are within a 1 bit/symbol of the MMSE with perfect estimate when the number of users is comparable to the number of antennas.

In a conventional cellular network, a terminal receives signals not only from the base station of that cell, but also from other cell base stations. This inter-cell interference has more impact on the cell-edge users, in multi cell environment. The inter-cell interference degrades the performance of wireless systems. Using Base Station Cooperation, the ability of a mobile station to receive signals from multiple base stations can be utilized as an opportunity to improve the spectral efficiency and to get higher data rates for cell edge users. In multi cell environment using base station cooperation overall interference can be minimized marginally, whereas the interference within the cooperation region is largely reduced. This leads to a question whether it is worth doing cooperation all the time. However increase in terms of throughput may not always be enough to increase the throughput of each of the user .Hence for such a scenario the distinct cooperation scheme is used. The distinct cooperation is a joint transmission scheme in which the selection criterion is based on user’s signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) is proposed and the capacity achieved through cooperation is shared equally among the cell-edge users. Here we will analyze the normal operation, full cooperation and distinct cooperation scheme in the downlink environment for cell edge users in cellular network and we will compare and see which method improves the user capacity and data rate.KeywordsCooperative transmissionfull cooperationDistinct cooperationsignal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR)

Signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) based call admission control (CAC) scheme admits incoming calls as long as the measured SINR is higher than threshold value (SINR <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> ). If a high value of SINR <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> is chosen, the signal quality will improve but this will increase the blocking probability (p <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">b</sub> ), and as a result, will decrease the network utilization. On the other hand, a low value of SINR <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> will reduce p <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">b</sub> , however degrades the signal quality and increases outage probability (p <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">out</sub> ). Hence, how to choose appropriate SINR <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> is very important. In this paper, we focus on the following aspects. Firstly, an accurate upper bound of SINR <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> is derived. Secondly, based on the upper bound of SINR <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> and a lower bound from other literature, we design a fuzzy logic controller (FLC), which can adaptively adjust SINR <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> according to the number of active users (AUs) in a cell and average arriving traffic intensity (AATI) in Erlang per cell. Finally, network performance based on FLC is compared with that based on optimal fixed SINR <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sub> . Numerical results show that the proposed scheme based on FLC has better performance than the optimal fixed threshold CAC scheme.

Ultra-dense networks (UDNs) have been widely regarded as a promising technology to meet higher requirements of the fifth generation (5G) network. However, densely deployed femtocells bring an unprecedented challenge of importing severe co-channel interference (CCI), which greatly limits the performance of the network. Therefore, interference management in UDNs is particularly important. The conflict-graph is widely recognized as the representation of underlying interference constraints of the network. Most prior studies establish conflict-graphs based on accurate geographical distance information which is usually unavailable by the network operators in practice. A more practical neural network based conflict-graph construction approach, which utilizes up-link signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) data and up-link resource block (RB) allocation data, is proposed in this paper. These data are used to train a neural network for predicting the up-link SINR under single interfering user conditions. Utilizing the predicted SINR data as the edge weights of the constructed conflict-graph considers both the influence of inter-user interference and the interference tolerance ability of each user, which better reflects the resource reuse conflict between users. Users can collaborate and coordinate their resource allocation strategies according to the constructed conflict-graph so as to mitigate severe CCI in the network. Therefore, the proposed approach facilitates the realization of the intelligent resource allocation optimization. Furthermore, the proposed conflict-graph construction approach achieves quite a high accuracy, which has been verified by simulation results.