Análise de escalonadores baseados no proportional fair e técnicas de coordenação de interferência intercelular no downlink LTE-A para redes heterogêneas

Abstract

LTE (Long-Term Evolution) networks have played a key role in the evolution of mobile communications as it was a technology designed to provide improved spectral efficiency, higher throughput and lower latency compared to previous generations of mobile networks. As data traffic increases and coverage areas need to be extended, challenges arise in maintaining the Quality of Service (QoS) and performance of LTE networks. One solution to these challenges is the deployment of heterogeneous networks. Heterogeneous networks use the combination of different cell types, such as macrocells, picocells and femtocells, to improve network capacity and performance. This allows users to benefit from a more consistent and higher quality network experience. However, due to increased frequency reuse through network densification, the deployment of heterogeneous networks introduces new challenges, such as interference between cells. To alleviate this problem, interference coordination techniques such as eICIC (enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination) and FeICIC (Fractional Frequency Reuse Enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination) are used. Such techniques allow for more effective coordination, reducing interference between adjacent cells. In conjunction with ICIC (Inter-Cell Interference Coordination) techniques, schedulers such as PF (Proportional Fair) and GPF (Generic Proportional Fair) are used in order to optimize the allocation of resources in LTE networks, resulting in greater spectral and energy efficiency, thus generating a significant improvement in signal quality and greater fairness in the throughput delivered by the network. Thus, this work proposes a comparative study through simulations of heterogeneous networks, without and with the use of ICIC techniques and using variations of the PF scheduling algorithm in cellular network densification scenarios.