Estimating the Distance Between Macro Base Station and Users in Heterogeneous Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a median-based estimator enabling small-cell stations in heterogeneous networks to accurately determine the distance to macro users without relying on backhaul links, thus improving interference management.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel median-based estimator for SBS to estimate MBS-MU distance without backhaul links, addressing a practical challenge in HetNets.

Findings

Estimation error as low as 4% with the proposed method.

The estimator performs well even without backhaul links.

Provides a practical solution for interference control in HetNets.

Abstract

In underlay heterogeneous networks (HetNets), the distance between a macro base station (MBS) and a macro user (MU) is crucial for a small-cell based station (SBS) to control the interference to the MU and achieve the coexistence. To obtain the distance between the MBS and the MU, the SBS needs a backhaul link from the macro system, such that the macro system is able to transmit the information of the distance to the SBS through the backhaul link. However, there may not exist any backhaul link from the macro system to the SBS in practical situations. Thus, it is challenging for the SBS to obtain the distance. To deal with this issue, we propose a median based (MB) estimator for the SBS to obtain the distance between the MBS and the MU without any backhaul link. Numerical results show that the estimation error of the MB estimator can be as small as $4\%$.