Coordinated Dynamic Spectrum Management of LTE-U and Wi-Fi Networks

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the interference between Wi-Fi and LTE in shared unlicensed bands, develops an analytical model to evaluate their coexistence, and proposes a centralized coordination approach to improve performance.

Contribution

It introduces a new analytical model for Wi-Fi and LTE coexistence and demonstrates how centralized coordination can significantly enhance their performance.

Findings

Both Wi-Fi and LTE cause mutual interference affecting performance.

Inter-network coordination yields substantial performance improvements.

Model validation confirmed key interference effects.

Abstract

This paper investigates the co-existence of Wi-Fi and LTE in emerging unlicensed frequency bands which are intended to accommodate multiple radio access technologies. Wi-Fi and LTE are the two most prominent access technologies being deployed today, motivating further study of the inter-system interference arising in such shared spectrum scenarios as well as possible techniques for enabling improved co-existence. An analytical model for evaluating the baseline performance of co-existing Wi-Fi and LTE is developed and used to obtain baseline performance measures. The results show that both Wi-Fi and LTE networks cause significant interference to each other and that the degradation is dependent on a number of factors such as power levels and physical topology. The model-based results are partially validated via experimental evaluations using USRP based SDR platforms on the ORBIT testbed. Further, inter-network coordination with logically centralized radio resource management across Wi-Fi and LTE systems is proposed as a possible solution for improved co-existence. Numerical results are presented showing significant gains in both Wi-Fi and LTE performance with the proposed inter-network coordination approach.