In an Ultra-dense network (UDN) where there are more base stations (BSs) than active users, it is possible that many BSs are instantaneously left idle. Thus, how to utilize these dormant BSs by means of cooperative transmission is an interesting question. In this paper, we investigate the performance of a UDN with two types of cooperation schemes: non-coherent joint transmission (JT) without channel state information (CSI) and coherent JT with full CSI knowledge. We consider a bounded dual-slope path loss model to describe UDN environments where a user has several BSs in the near-field and the rest in the far-field. Numerical results show that non-coherent JT cannot improve the user spectral efficiency (SE) due to the simultaneous increment in signal and interference powers. For coherent JT, the achievable SE gain depends on the range of near-field, the relative densities of BSs and users, and the CSI accuracy. Finally, we assess the energy efficiency (EE) of cooperation in UDN. Despite costing extra energy consumption, cooperation can still improve EE under certain conditions.
Joint transmission (JT) is a potential solution which allows multiple BSs to jointly serve one user. In traditional fully loaded cellular networks, JT could turn dominant interferers into useful signals as shown in Fig. (a) while the other interferers remain the same. Thus, the desired signal strength increases and the interference decreases simultaneously, at the cost of reduced scheduling probability. It is known that JT enhances the performance of cell-edge users in macro cellular networks @cite_2 . However, interference nature is completely different in a UDN because turning on dormant BSs is like a double-edged sword, i.e., improving the desired received signal strength, but generating extra interference and energy consumption. In Fig. (b), if all the users get assistance from nearby sleeping BSs, the interference will grow rapidly as well as the desired signal power. Therefore, how to design cooperation schemes in UDN to overcome the concurrent interference becomes a big challenge. A cooperative UDN architecture is proposed in @cite_15 , but without further discussions on cooperation schemes and performance evaluation.
@cite_15 @cite_2
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Base station (BS) cooperation is set to play a key role in managing interference in dense heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs). Non-coherent joint transmission (JT) is particularly appealing due to its low complexity, smaller overhead, and ability for load balancing. However, a general analysis of this technique is difficult mostly due to the lack of tractable models. This paper addresses this gap and presents a tractable model for analyzing non-coherent JT in HCNs, while incorporating key system parameters such as user-centric BS clustering and channel-dependent cooperation activation. Assuming all BSs of each tier follow a stationary Poisson point process, the coverage probability for non-coherent JT is derived. Using the developed model, it is shown that for small cooperative clusters of small-cell BSs, non-coherent JT by small cells provides spectral efficiency gains without significantly increasing cell load. Further, when cooperation is aggressively triggered intra-cluster frequency reuse within small cells is favorable over intra-cluster coordinated scheduling. Cellular systems in general suffer from co-channel interference, when simultaneous transmissions in other cells use the same physical resources. In order to mitigate such co-channel interference cooperating Base Stations (BSs) can perform joint multi-antenna signal processing across cell borders. This paper describes a concept of distributed cooperation, where BSs communicate directly via a BS-BS interface without central control. A serving BS can serve its terminals on its own or it can request cooperation from one or more supporting BSs. By collecting IQ samples from the supporting BSs' antenna elements, the serving BS can virtually increase its number of receive antennas. Exchanging additional parameters allows applying advanced receiver algorithms, e.g., interference rejection or cancelation. Performance evaluations by means of simulation show the capability of BS cooperation applied to 3GPP LTE in terms of cell and user throughput but it also shows the trade-off in terms of increased backhaul requirement due to BS-BS communication. This paper studies downlink communication in a heterogeneous cellular network where a set of geographically separated base stations (BSs) cooperates in transmitting data to a common receiver. If a decoding error occurs, data is cooperatively retransmitted by a possibly different set of BSs, such that the receiver can benefit from spatiotemporal BS cooperation. Specific cooperation techniques studied in this paper include joint transmission, base station silencing, and the Alamouti space-time code. Using tools from stochastic geometry, the coverage probability at the typical user is characterized as an integral function of the network parameters and the sets of cooperating BSs. The expressions derived reveal the existence of two qualitatively different operating regimes. In the high-coverage regime, the typical user is diversity-limited, so cooperation techniques exploiting spatiotemporal diversity are highly effective in increasing coverage. It is shown that retransmissions always yield time diversity, while channel state information at the transmitters is required to harvest spatial diversity via joint transmission. In the low-coverage regime, on the other hand, the typical user is interference-limited, so cooperation techniques such as joint transmission and base station silencing are effective in increasing coverage as they suppress part of the interference power. Cooperative transmission by base stations (BSs) can significantly improve the spectral efficiency of multiuser, multi-cell, multiple input multiple output (MIMO) systems. We show that contrary to what is often assumed in the literature, the multiuser interference in such systems is fundamentally asynchronous. Intuitively, perfect timing-advance mechanisms can at best only ensure that the desired signal components -but not also the interference components -are perfectly aligned at their intended mobile stations. We develop an accurate mathematical model for the asynchronicity, and show that it leads to a significant performance degradation of existing designs that ignore the asynchronicity of interference. Using three previously proposed linear preceding design methods for BS cooperation, we develop corresponding algorithms that are better at mitigating the impact of the asynchronicity of the interference. Furthermore, we also address timing-advance inaccuracies (jitter), which are inevitable in a practical system. We show that using jitter-statistics-aware precoders can mitigate the impact of these inaccuracies as well. The insights of this paper are critical for the practical implementation of BS cooperation in multiuser MIMO systems, a topic that is typically oversimplified in the literature.