Methods and apparatus for supporting adaptive resource negotiation between evolved node Bs (eNBs) for enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (eICIC) are provided. This resource negotiation may occur via a network backhaul between the eNBs or, in some cases, using over-the-air messages (OAMs). For certain aspects, a first eNB may propose its adaptive resource partitioning information (ARPI) to a second eNB, where the second eNB may accept or reject the proposed resource partitioning. If the second eNB accepts the proposed partitioning, the second eNB may schedule resources, such as subframes, based on the accepted partitioning.

Adaptive resource negotiation between base stations for enhanced interference coordination

SE is a key characteristic of cellular communication systems. With the explosive growth of mobile data traffic in future wireless networks, the improvement of SE is necessary and it has been the main target in the 3rd Generation Partner Project standard. Considering this, a small cell solution is put forward and widely regarded as a promising technique to enhance SE by deploying low power cells (micro/pico/femto cells) in macrocells. However, with this mechanism cell gains can be severely limited by high inter-cell interference due to the densely deployed small cells. To address this problem, we first browse the major interference management techniques such as interference cancellation, interference coordination, coordinated multipoint transmission and reception, and interference alignment. Then we analyze the challenges when processing interference in a small cell architecture, and we explore the corresponding solutions. Finally, we design a scheme for interference mitigation from both the signaling and data transmission point of views. For the former, power constraint is employed. For the latter, a joint cross-tier and intra-tier interference mitigation sub-scheme is utilized. With this method, cross-tier interference can be alleviated by hybrid spectrum sharing, while intra-tier interference is avoided with orthogonal spectrum allocation. Besides, two methods are employed for exchanging information required in interference mitigation: wireless broadcast channel and UE-assisted relay. Simulations show that our proposed scheme achieves considerable improvement in SE compared to traditional schemes.

Interference management for heterogeneous networks with spectral efficiency improvement

We disclose systems and methods of dynamically virtualizing a wireless communication network. The communication network is comprised of heterogeneous multi-RAT mesh nodes coupled to a computing cloud component. The computing cloud component virtualizes the true extent of the resources it manages and presents an interface to the core network that appears to be a single base station.

Dynamic Multi-Access Wireless Network Virtualization

Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide methods and apparatus for subframe muting and/or discontinuous reception (DRX) mode related to sleep mode for user equipment (UE) relays. One method generally includes measuring, at a UE functioning as a relay (i.e., a UE relay), signals of one or more other UEs functioning as relays during one or more particular subframes and reporting the measurements of the signals to an apparatus. Another method generally includes determining, at a first UE functioning as a relay, that no UEs are being served by the first UE; based on the determination, increasing an interval between broadcast signals; and transmitting the broadcast signals according to the increased interval.

Sleep mode for user equipment relays

A method for a network node, a method for a relay wireless device, a method for an out of coverage wireless device, a network node, and a relay wireless device, an out of coverage wireless device are presented. The network node serves a cell in which a relay wireless device is at least partially located, and where further the network node provides at least partial network coverage for the relay wireless device located in the cell, and where furthermore an out of coverage wireless device is at least partially out of network coverage from the network node. The method includes determining that the network node should control the out of coverage wireless device. The method further includes determining D2D control information to be used for controlling the out of coverage wireless device (305), and finally the method includes transmitting the D2D control information to the out of coverage wireless device via a relay wireless device.

Device to device (d2d) control information relay

Cognitive interference management in Cellular wireless network with relays and micro/pico/femto cells operated in distributed scheduling mode. A cellular system may use RS to improve capacity or for coverage extension. A RS relays the signals between BS 104 and MS by using wireless links between BS-RS and RS-MS during both downlink and uplink transmissions. Embodiments herein disclose a mechanism to explicitly indicate to the MS whether the MAC management messages sent by the BS to the MS are to inform it to perform scanning for interference measurement. Also, disclosed herein is a mechanism to explicitly indicate to the BS whether the message sent by the MS is related to interference measurement.

Cognitive Interference Management in Wireless Networks with Relays, Macro Cells, Micro Cells, Pico Cells and Femto Cells

A Heterogeneous network (HetNet) of LTE is expected to have macros, picos with biased association, and, femtos in closed access mode. An user equipment (UE) which associates to a pico eNodeB due to biasing experiences severe interference from macro eNodeB. Similarly, a UE associated to the macro eNodeB in the proximity of closed access femto can go into outage due to heavy interference from the femto, thus creating coverage holes in the network. Such UEs experiencing severe interference are referred to as victim UEs and the nodes that cause the interference are referred to as aggressors. Inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) techniques are considered in LTE-A to overcome these problems. One of the solutions considered is by blanking some subframes at the aggressor for protecting victim UEs from interference caused by these nodes. In this paper, a scheme based on almost blank subframes (ABS) defined in LTE-A to handle the interference in a HetNet scenario is proposed. This is done by blanking certain subframes of a node, which has potential to create severe interference to the UEs associated to other nodes. The proposed scheme determines the number and location of subframes that are to be blanked at each aggressor node. It is observed that, the victim UE performance can be significantly improved with careful selection of ABS pattern at macro and femto eNodeBs within the cell.

On interference management based on subframe blanking in Heterogeneous LTE networks

The embodiments herein disclose an indoor personal relay which has a wireless interface with the BS, which is effective in both cost and technology terms. The indoor personal relay, as disclosed herein is an estimate and forward relay. The relay (101) as disclosed herein does not perform any additional channel decoding/encoding on the data that it receives from the UE or BS. Embodiments disclosed herein enable the relevant UEs to have a high SINR link with the relay. This, in turn, translates to a better effective link quality between the UE and BS and higher indoor rates, which otherwise may have been not as good as a consequence of poor direct link between the UE and the BS. This relay is effectively transparent to the UE. The deployment of relays also implies minimal impact on UE IOT.

Indoor personal relay

For the new joint transmission paradigm being discussed under the IEEE 802.11be standardization efforts, we report the findings of our attempt at addressing the possible gains, and strategies, of using such a scheme. We look at the best possible rate achievable under the Joint Transmission approach, and then use these findings to address the problem of performing joint scheduling in a common practical deployment scenario.

Decision Problems for Joint Transmission in Multi-AP Coordination Framework of IEEE 802.11be

In this work, a heterogeneous network with low power pico nodes overlaid in macro cell coverage area is considered. Biased association is used at picos to achieve load balancing, which results in cell range expansion (CRE). The user equipments (UEs) in CRE region will associate to a weak pico node and experience severe interference from macro eNodeB. Blanking subframes at macro, coupled with scheduling pico CRE users in these protected subframes has been introduced in the LTE-Advanced standard to protect the CRE UEs from macro interference. This considerably improves the performance of CRE UEs at the cost of macro resources and additional macro-pico signalling overhead. It is also proposed to reduce the transmit power of macro instead of blanking in order to avoid the loss of resources. In this paper, a power control scheme that adapts the transmit power of each pico independently in some subframes based on the requirement of CRE UEs is proposed. The system simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves better performance for both macro UEs and pico CRE UEs compared to when macro transmit power is reduced, even while utilizing all the resources at macro and without any additional signalling between macro and pico nodes.

Nadeem Akhtar

Papers

Cognitive Interference Management in Wireless Networks with Relays, Macro Cells, Micro Cells, Pico Cells and Femto Cells

On interference management based on subframe blanking in Heterogeneous LTE networks

Indoor personal relay

Decision Problems for Joint Transmission in Multi-AP Coordination Framework of IEEE 802.11be

A novel power control scheme for macro-pico heterogeneous networks with biased association