Abstract-The diverse transmit power levels of base stations (BSs) in a multitier cellular network, on the one hand, lead to an uneven distribution of traffic loads among different BSs when received signal power (RSP)-based user association is used. This causes underutilization of resources at low-power BSs. On the other hand, strong interference from high-power BSs affects downlink transmissions to the users associated with low-power BSs. In this context, this paper proposes a channel-access-aware (CAA) user association scheme that can simultaneously enhance the spectral efficiency (SE) of downlink transmission and achieve traffic load balancing among different BSs. The CAA scheme is a network-assisted user association scheme that requires traffic load information from different BSs, in addition to channel quality indicators. We develop a tractable mathematical model to derive the SE of the network and the SE of downlink transmission to a user who associates with a BS using the proposed CAA scheme considering almost blank subframe ( Index Terms-Almost blank subframe (ABS), channel access probability, downlink user association, interference coordination, interference statistics, spectral efficiency (SE), two-tier cellular network, universal channel reuse.
Siddique et al. REF proposed a channel-access-aware association scheme in which the main idea is that each user estimates its channel access probability from different BSs to determine the best BS.
Channel-Access-Aware User Association With Interference Coordination in Two-Tier Downlink Cellular Networks
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
Computer Science