Cooperative Interference Mitigation and Handover Management for Heterogeneous Cloud Small Cell Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new network architecture and schemes for interference mitigation and handover management in heterogeneous cloud small cell networks, significantly improving capacity and user quality of service in 5G environments.

Contribution

It introduces a combined network architecture with CoMP clustering and a low complexity handover scheme tailored for HCSNet, addressing interference and mobility challenges.

Findings

Significant capacity increase in HCSNet with proposed schemes

Effective interference mitigation at cell edges

Improved handover efficiency and user experience

Abstract

Heterogeneous small cell network has attracted much attention to satisfy users' explosive data traffic requirements. Heterogeneous cloud small cell network (HCSNet), which combines cloud computing and heterogeneous small cell network, will likely play an important role in 5G mobile communication networks. However, with massive deployment of small cells, co-channel interference and handover management are two important problems in HCSNet, especially for cell edge users. In this article, we examine the problems of cooperative interference mitigation and handover management in HCSNet. A network architecture is described to combine cloud radio access network with small cells. An effective coordinated multi-point (CoMP) clustering scheme using affinity propagation is adopted to mitigate cell edge users' interference. A low complexity handover management scheme is presented, and its signaling procedure is analyzed in HCSNet. Numerical results show that the proposed network architecture, CoMP clustering scheme and handover management scheme can significantly increase the capacity of HCSNet while maintaining users' quality of service.