Contributions to Analysis and Mitigation of Cochannel Interference in Cellular Wireless Networks

Aalto University, P.O. Box 11000, FI-00076 Aalto www.aalto. fi Author Michal Čierny Name of the doctoral dissertation Contributions to Analysis and Mitigation of Cochannel Interference in Cellular Wireless Networks Publisher School of Electrical Engineering Unit Department of Signal Processing and Acoustics Series Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS 142/2016 Field of research Signal Processing for Communications Manuscript submitted 25 April 2015 Date of the defence 19 August 2016 Permission to publish granted (date) 21 April 2016 Language English Monograph Article dissertation Essay dissertation Abstract Cellular wireless networks have become a commodity. We use our cellular devices every day to connect to others, to conduct business, for entertainment. Strong demand for wireless access has made corresponding parts of radio spectrum very valuable. Consequently, network operators and their suppliers are constantly being pressured for its efficient use. Unlike the first and second generation cellular networks, current generations do not therefore separate geographical sites in frequency. This universal frequency reuse, combined with continuously increasing spatial density of the transmitters, leads to challenging interference levels in the network. This dissertation collects several contributions to analysis and mitigation of interference in cellular wireless networks. The contributions are categorized and set in the context of prior art based on key characteristics, then they are treated one by one. The first contribution encompasses dynamic signaling that measures instantaneous interference situations and allows only for such transmissions that do not harm each other excessively. A novel forward signaling approach is introduced as an alternative to traditional reverse signaling. Forward signaling allows the interference management decisions to be done at the receiver, where there is more relevant information available. The second contribution analyzes cross-link interference in heterogeneous networks. Crosslink interference is interference between downlink and uplink transmissions that can appear in time-division duplex (TDD) networks. It is shown that uplink reception of small cells can be disturbed considerably by macrocell downlink transmissions. We proposes an intuitive solution to the problem based on power control. Users in small cells have generally enough power headroom as the distance to the small base station is often short. The third contribution provides an extensive analysis of a specific interference managment method that the Long-Term Evolution (LTE) applies in cochannel heterogeneous deployments. We analyze this so-called time muting using a modern stochastic geometry approach and show that performance of the method strongly depends on residual interference in the muted sections of time. The fourth and last contribution analyzes the impact of interference rank, i.e., number of spatial streams at the interferer, on a beamformed or spatially block coded transmission. It is shown that when the interferer chooses to transmit multiple spatial streams, spreading the power in spatial domain has potential to decrease probability of outage at neighbor receiver, especially if the neighbor transmission uses beamforming.