Downlink Transmit Power Setting in LTE HetNets with Carrier Aggregation

TL;DR

This paper proposes a game theory-based distributed algorithm for dynamic downlink power adjustment in LTE HetNets with carrier aggregation, improving network utility and user throughput while reducing power consumption.

Contribution

It introduces a novel game theory approach for power control in carrier aggregation, addressing the challenge of interference management in heterogeneous networks.

Findings

Significant improvement in network utility over existing strategies.

Reduction in power consumption without sacrificing throughput.

Enhanced user throughput compared to fixed power schemes.

Abstract

Carrier aggregation, which allows users to aggregate several component carriers to obtain up to 100 MHz of band- width, is one of the central features envisioned for next generation cellular networks. While this feature will enable support for higher data rates and improve quality of service, it may also be employed as an effective interference mitigation technique, especially in multi-tier heterogeneous networks. Having in mind that the aggregated component carriers may belong to different frequency bands and, hence, have varying propagation profiles, we argue that it is not necessary, indeed even harmful, to transmit at maximum power at all carriers, at all times. Rather, by using game theory, we design a distributed algorithm that lets eNodeBs and micro base stations dynamically adjust the downlink transmit power for the different component carriers. We compare our scheme to different power strategies combined with popular interference mitigation techniques, in a typical large-scale scenario, and show that our solution significantly outperforms the other strategies in terms of global network utility, power consumption and user throughput.