Modern cellular systems feature increasingly dense base station deployments, augmented by multiple tiers of access points, in an effort to provide higher network capacity as user traffic, especially data traffic, increases. The primary limitation of these dense networks is co-channel interference. The primary source of interference is inter-cell and cross-tier interference, which is especially limiting for users near the boundary of the cells. Inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) is a broad umbrella term for strategies to improve the performance of the network by having each cell allocate its resources such that the interference experienced in the network is minimized, while maximizing spatial reuse. Fractional frequency reuse (FFR) has been proposed as an ICIC technique in modern wireless networks. The basic idea of FFR is to partition the cell’s bandwidth so that (i) cell-edge users of adjacent cells do not interfere with each other and (ii) interference received by (and created by) cell-interior users is reduced, while (iii) improving spectral reuse compared to conventional frequency reuse. It is attractive for its intuitive implementation and relatively low network coordination requirements compared to other ICIC strategies including interference cancellation, network MIMO, and opportunistic scheduling. There are two common FFR deployment modes: Strict FFR and Soft Frequency Reuse (SFR). This dissertation identifies and addresses key technical challenges associated with fractional frequency reuse in modern cellular networks by utilizing an accurate yet tractable model of both the downlink (base station to mobile) and uplink (mobile to base station) based on the Poisson point process for modeling base station locations. The resulting expressions allow for the development of system design guidelines as a function of FFR parameters and show their impact on important metrics of coverage, rate, power control, and spectral efficiency. This new complete analytical framework addresses system design and performance differences in the uplink and downlink. Also, this model can be applied to cellular networks with multiple tiers of access points, often called heterogeneous cellular networks. The model allows for analysis as a function of system design parameters for users under Strict FFR and SFR with closed and open access between tiers. / text

There has been a rapid growth in the data rate carried by cellular services, and this increase along with the emergence of new multimedia applications have motivated the 3rd Generation Partnership (3GPP) Project to launch Long-Term Evolution (LTE) [1]. LTE is the latest standard in the mobile network technology and is designed to meet the ubiquitous demands of next-generation mobile networks. LTE assures significant spectral and energy efficiency gains in both the uplink and down- link with low latency. Multiple access schemes such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Aultiple Access (OFDMA) and Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) which is a modified version of OFDMA have been recently adopted in 3GPP LTE downlink and uplink, respectively [1]. A typical feature of OFDMA is the decomposition of available bandwidth into multiple narrow orthogonal subcarriers. The orthogonality among subcarriers causes minimal intra-cell interference, however, the inter-cell interference (ICI) incurred on a given subcarrier is relatively impulsive and poses a fundamental challenge for the network designers. Moreover, as the number of interferers on a given subcarrier can be relatively limited it may not be accurate to model ICI as a Gaussian random variable by invoking the central limit theorem. The nature of ICI relies on a variety of indeterministic parameters which include frequency reuse factor, channel conditions, scheduling decisions, transmit power, and location of the interferers. This thesis presents a combination of algorithmic and theoretical studies for efficient modeling and management of ICI via radio resource management. In the preliminary phase, we focus on developing and analyzing the performance of several centralized and distributed interference mitigation and rate maximization algorithms. These algorithms relies on optimizing the spectrum allocation and user’s transmission powers to maximize the system capacity. Even though, the developed algorithms possesses low complexity, the simulation run-time may become challenging in the practical scenarios with very large number of users and subcarriers. Motivated by this fact, we then develop several statistical models that can accurately capture the dynamics of interference with distinct applications in the performance analysis of single carrier and multicarrier future wireless networks. The developed models can be customized for (i) various state-of-the-art coordinated and uncoordinated scheduling algorithms; (ii) slow and fast power control mechanisms; (iii) partial and fractional frequency reuse systems; and (iv) various composite fading distributions. The developed framework is useful in evaluating important system performance metrics such as outage probability, ergodic capacity, and average fairness numerically without the need of time consuming Monte-Carlo simulations. The theoretical framework is expected to enhance the planning tools for OFDMA based wireless networks by providing fast estimates of the typical performance metrics. Finally, we investigate and quantify the spectral and energy efficiency of two tier heterogeneous networks (HetNets) by employing power-control based interference mitigation technique. In particular, we analyze the performance of two tier HetNets deployment by deriving the theoretical bounds on the area spectral efficiency and exact analytical expressions for the energy efficiency by considering slow and fast power control mechanisms. The derived expressions are expected to be useful in providing insights for the design of efficient HetNet deployments.

Multimedia services over wireless networks are getting popular. With multicast many mobile stations can join the same video multicast group and share the same radio resource to increase frequency utilization efficiently. However users may locate at different positions so as to suffer different path loss, interference and receive different signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR). Users at the cell-edge receiving lower SINR may degrade the multicast efficiency. In this thesis we propose four schemes considering fractional frequency reuse (FFR) over relay networks to reuse frequency in multi-cells. With fractional frequency reuse, users close to the base station (BS) have more resources to improve the total frequency utilization. A resource allocation scheme is also proposed to efficiently allocate wireless resources. Compared to the conventional relay scheme, the proposed schemes can provide more than 10% video layers for all users and give better video quality for users near BS.

With the popularity of wireless networks, it needs to support user¡¦s mobility cross different base stations, hence, the handover mechanism becomes an important issue. When the user frequently moves between two cells, it will occur the Ping-Pong effect that increases the delay time and reduces the efficiency of system. In this thesis, we proposed a new handover mechanism by considering the fractional frequency reuse (FFR) over relay networks to reuse frequency in multi-cells. The proposed method can reduce the unnecessary handover caused by the interference in the system of FFR. It uses the value of signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) and the parameter of distance to make handover decision. The simulation results indicate the proposed handover mechanism can reduce more than 8% of the handover number in average in comparison to the competing method in the best case.

The thesis is concerned with capacity and coverage enhancement of OFDMA heterogeneous cellular systems with a specific focus on fractional frequency reuse (FFR), femtocells and amplify-and-forward (AF) relay systems. The main aim of the thesis is to develop new mathematical analysis for the spectral efficiency and outage probability of multi-cells multi-tier systems in diverse traffic, interference and fading scenarios. In the first part of the thesis, a new unified mathematical framework for performance analysis of FFR and soft frequency reuse (SFR) schemes is developed. This leads to new exact expressions of FFR and SFR area spectral efficiency in downlink and uplink scenarios which account for a mixture of frequency reuse factors in a homogeneous cellular system. The mathematical framework is extended to include modelling and performance analysis of FFR systems with elastic data traffic. Further analysis is carried out in relation to the performance of FFR and/or SFR schemes, in terms of energy efficiency and base station cooperation. The new proposed analytical framework can lead to a better understanding and computationally efficient performance analysis of next generation heterogeneous cellular systems. Next generation cellular systems are characterized by an increase in the spatial node density to improve the spectral efficiency and coverage, especially for users at home and at the cell edges. In this regard, relays and femtocells play a major role. Therefore, relays and femocells are the focus of the second part of the thesis. Firstly, we present a new and unified spectral efficiency analysis in dual-hop fixed-gain AF relay systems over generalised interferences models. The generalised interference models are either based on the Nakagami-m fading with arbitrary distance or on spatial Poisson Point Process in case of randomly deployed heterogeneous interferers. The models have been considered separately in the open literature due to the complexity of the mathematical analysis. Secondly, the outage probability is utilised to deduce the femtocell exclusion region for FFR system and a new static resource allocation scheme is proposed for femtocells which improve the capacity. The work presented in the thesis has resulted in the publication of seven scientific papers in prestigious IEEE journals and conferences.

No description available.

The demand for higher data rates for indoor and cell-edge users led to evolution of small cells. LTE femtocells, one of the small cell categories, are low-power low-cost mobile base stations, which are deployed within the coverage area of the traditional macro base station. The cross-tier and co-tier interferences occur only when the macrocell and femtocell share the same frequency channels. Open access (OSG), closed access (CSG), and hybrid access are the three existing access-control methods that decide users' connectivity to the femtocell access point (FAP). We define a network performance function, network productivity, to measure the traffic that is carried successfully. In this dissertation, we evaluate call mobility in LTE integrated network and determine optimized network productivity with variable call arrival rate in given LTE deployment with femtocell access modes (OSG, CSG, HYBRID) for a given call blocking vector. The solution to the optimization is maximum network productivity and call arrival rates for all cells. In the second scenario, we evaluate call mobility in LTE integrated network with increasing femtocells and maximize network productivity with variable femtocells distribution per macrocell with constant call arrival rate in uniform LTE deployment with femtocell access modes (OSG, CSG, HYBRID) for a given call blocking vector. The solution to the optimization is maximum network productivity and call arrival rates for all cells for network deployment where peak productivity is identified. We analyze the effects of call mobility on network productivity by simulating low, high, and no mobility scenarios and study the impact based on offered load, handover traffic and blocking probabilities. Finally, we evaluate and optimize performance of fractional frequency reuse (FFR) mechanism and study the impact of proposed metric weighted user satisfaction with sectorized FFR configuration.

Ο αριθμός των συνδρομητών κινητής τηλεφωνίας έχει αυξηθεί σημαντικά τα τελευταία χρόνια. Σε μεγάλο βαθμό οι φωνητικές υπηρεσίες εξυπηρετούνται από κινητά δίκτυα, ενώ παράλληλα αυξήθηκε σε μεγάλο βαθμό η χρήση των δεδομένων στα δίκτυα εκείνα που εφαρμόστηκε το 3GPP High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), αποδεικνύοντας ότι οι χρήστες επιδοκιμάζουν τη χρήση δεδομένων που παρέχονται ασύρματα με ευρυζωνικές ταχύτητες. Ο μέσος αριθμός χρήσης δεδομένων ξεπερνά τα εκατοντάδες megabytes ανά χρήστη κάθε μήνα. Τα ασύρματα δίκτυα πρέπει να αυξήσουν τις ταχύτητες μετάδοσης δεδομένων έτσι ώστε να πλησιάσουν εκείνες της ενσύρματης επικοινωνίας. Οι χρήστες είναι συνηθισμένοι να χρησιμοποιούν ενσύρματα δίκτυα και έτσι περιμένουν από τα ασύρματα δίκτυα να προσφέρουν συγκρίσιμες αποδόσεις με χαμηλό κόστος μετάδοσης δεδομένων. Το 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) είναι σχεδιασμένο να επιτύχει αυτούς τους στόχους. Η τεχνολογία LTE προσφέρει κλιμακωτό εύρος ζώνης (απο 1.25 έως 20 MHz) με ρυθμούς μετάδοσης στα 100 Mbps για τον κατερχόμενο σύνδεσμο και στα 50 Mbps για τον ανερχόμενο. Αυτές οι πτυχές συνοδευόμενες από την τεχνολογία πρόσβασης που χρησιμοποιείται, η οποία είναι η OFDM (Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), βελτιώνουν τη ρυθμαπόδοση του χρήστη και τη χωρητικότητα, ενώ μειώνουν τις καθυστερήσεις προσφέροντας παράλληλα βελτιωμένες συνθήκες κατά την κινητικότητα του χρήστη. Η OFDM προσφέρει επίσης μεγαλύτερη ανέχεια σε φαινόμενα όπως η εξασθένιση και το multipath σε σύγκριση με τεχνολογίες που εφαρμόζονταν σε προηγούμενα δίκτυα. Επίσης, είναι σημαντικό να αναφερθεί ότι το LTE χρησιμοποιεί τη μεταγωγή πακέτων και χρησιμοποιεί την τεχνολογία πολλαπλών κεραιών καθώς επίσης πολυπλεξία στο επίπεδο του χρόνου και της συχνότητας. Τέλος, υποστηρίζει unicast και multicast μετάδοση, τόσο σε microcell (κελιά μικρότερου εύρους) όσο και macrocell (μεγαλύτερα κελιά) περιβάλλον. Το αντικείμενο που μελετάται σε αυτή τη διπλωματική είναι το πρόβλημα του περιορισμού των παρεμβολών οι οποίες επηρεάζουν σε μεγάλο βαθμό την απόδοση των LTE συστημάτων. Ιδιαίερη μελέτη γίνεται όσο αφορά στην Inter Cell παρεμβολή και στις Inter Cell Interference Coordination τεχνικές. Συγκεκριμένα, η έρευνα εστιάζει στη βελτίωση της απόδοσης των χρηστών μειώνοντας την παρεμβολή μέσω διαφόρων σχημάτων επαναχρησιμοποίησης συχνότητας. / The number of mobile subscribers has increased tremendously in recent years. Voice communication has become mobile in a massive way and the mobile is the preferred way for voice communication. At the same time the data usage has grown fast in those networks where 3GPP High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) was introduced indicating that the users find value in broadband wireless data. The average data consumption exceeds hundreds of Megabytes per subscriber per month. Wireless networks must make data rates higher in order to match the user experience provided by wireline networks. When customers are used to wireline performance, they expect the wireless network to offer comparable performance with low cost of data delivery. 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) is designed to meet those targets. LTE technology offers scalable bandwidth (from 1.25 up to 20 MHz), with transmission rates of 100 Mbps in downlink and 50 Mbps in uplink. These aspects accompanied with the access technology used, which is the OFDM (Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), improves end-user throughputs, sector capacity and reduces user plane latency, bringing significantly improved user experience with full mobility. OFDM also offers bigger tolerance in phenomena such as multipath and fading compared to technologies used in previous mobile networks. It is also important to be mentioned that LTE is fully packet switched and uses multiple antenna techniques along with FDD and TDD duplexing. Finally, it supports unicast and multicast transmission, in both microcell and macrocell environment. The subject studied in this thesis is the problem of mitigating Interferences which dramatically affects the performance of LTE system. Extensive study is done concerning Inter Cell Interference and Inter Cell Interference Coordination techniques. In particular, research focuses in enhancing users’ performance by reducing interference via varius schemes of frequency reuse.

Increasing energy consumption is a result of the rapid growth in cellular communication technologies and a massive increase in the number of mobile terminals (MTs) and communication sites. In cellular communication networks, energy efficiency (EE) and spectral efficiency (SE) are two of the most important criteria employed to evaluate the performance of networks. A compromise between these two conflicting criteria is therefore required, in order to achieve the best cellular network performance. Fractional frequency reuse (FFR), classed as either strict FFR or soft frequency reuse (SFR), is an intercell interference coordination (ICIC) technique applied to manage interference when more spectrum is used, and to enhance the EE. A conventional cellular model's downlink is designed as a reference in the presence of inter-cell interference (ICI) and a general fading environment. Energy-efficient cellular models,such as cell zooming, cooperative BSs and relaying models are designed, analysed and compared with the reference model, in order to reduce network energy consumption without degrading the SE. New mathematical models are derived herein to design a distributed antenna system (DAS), in order to enhance the system's EE and SE. DAS is designed in the presence of ICI and composite fading and shadowing with FFR. A coordinate multi-point (CoMP) technique is applied, using maximum ratio transmission (MRT) to serve the mobile terminal (MT), with all distributed antenna elements (DAEs), transmit antenna selection (TAS) being applied to select the best DAE and general selection combining (GSC) being applied to select more than one DAE. Furthermore, a Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is designed and analysed with two different schemes, using the high-power node (HPN) and a remote radio head (RRH), in order to improve the EE and SE of the system. Finally, a trade-off between the two conflicting criteria, EE and SE, is handled carefully in this thesis, in order to ensure a green cellular communication network.