Interfered Users Protection Algorithm for Self-Organizing Networks

Small cells are generally used by telecom operators to effectively share the loading of conventional macrocells and backbone networks, because they cost considerably less to deploy and are also capable of improving communication quality and capacity. However, radio frequency spectrum resources are limited and expensive, so using the same frequency band to deploy small cells in densely populated metropolitan environments could lead to overlapping signal coverage between neighboring cells. If a user is situated in such areas, this can result in severe radio signal interference and result in a significant decline in network transmission performance. This study therefore proposes combining cell grouping and base station power adjustment, as well as radio resource allocation algorithms, into an interference mitigation method for small cells. According to simulation results, the proposed Interfered Users Protection (IUP) algorithm produces a significantly higher signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) under varying numbers of base stations deployed, and the effect is stronger under densely deployed base stations with severe interference. Approximately 56% of the interfered users maintained a data rate of 250 Kbps and above. In addition, the average SINR of regular users were not affected; 67% of the regular users were still capable of maintaining this transmission rate. The IUP algorithm is capable of effectively improving interfered users’ signals and transmission capacity, while accounting for the transmission performance of the overall network. 