Interference in LTE Small Cells:

Status, Solutions, Perspectives.

Forum on small cells, 2012, December.

IEEE Globecom 2012

Presenter: Dr Guillaume de la Roche

Mindspeed France

1
Mindspeed: Short history
A Legacy of Innovation

Semiconductor Systems

2
Mindspeed Industry Firsts

#1 Market Position First to Market

FTTx VoIP Data Multicore ARM-based

Processors Broadband CPE

High-Density
4G/LTE Base Station
Crosspoint Switches SoC

GPON/GEPON Video/VoIP Convergence

Optical PMDs Processor

- Dual mode DFF TDD LTE SoC already deployed and leadership for LTE in Korea.
- Common lab with main chinese operator for TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE

3
Mobile Broadband Architecture – Going Distributed

Business Enterprise
Macro Micro Pico Femto Femto

Metro Urban High-Density Business

Metro Residential
Subs

1200 400 200 50 10

Supported Subscribers

Serving a broad range of basestations - from Macro to Femto

4 M-D-YYYY
Outline

•
Source of interferences
•
Solutions
•
Spectrum management.
•
eICIC.
•
Receiver design
•
SON
•
Perspectives

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Source of interference (1/3)

Pico eNB CSG HeNB

Macro eNB
Hybrid HeNB

Open HeNB
Relay
Operator's Core
Network Internet

Even in simple small scenario, where small cell do not

overlap much, there are multiple sources of interference
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 Source of interference (2/3)
Uplink
Downlink

Pico eNB CSG HeNB

Macro eNB
Hybrid HeNB

Open HeNB
Relay
Operator's Core
Network Internet

Small cells are beneficial to operators only if both UL and DL

interference are properly managed
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 Source of interference (3/3)
 Co-layer interference
• Uplink: due to uplink signal from UEs reaching each small cell
• Downlink: Due to small cells signals.
•Cross layer interference
•Uplink: due to all Ues
•Downlink: Due to all cells
•Main difference introduced by small cells:
• In traditional cellular networks, macrocells are installed and
maintained by operator, and frequency planning was quite easy.
• With small cells, number of cells may be so huge that there is
more chance of overlap between cells. Moreover some small cells
may be deployed by customers at uncontrolled positions.

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 Solutions to cope with interference

 1) Intelligent power and spectrum management

 2) ICIC
 3) Receiver design

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 Power and spectrum management (1/3)
 Spectrum management
– Cross channel deployment
• different carriers are used for small cells and macrocells
• Macro-to-small-cell interference is avoided
– Co-channel deployment
• All cells share the whole spectrum
• Higher performance can be reached, if resources are
correctly allocated
– Hybrid channel deployment
• Combination of both previous techniques can be
implemented.

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 Power and spectrum management (2/3)
 How to allocate the spectrum between cells and users?
– In LTE, sets of resource blocks (Rbs) are scheduled to the users
– Frequency reuse schemes (FRS) are commonly used
• Exemple:
f

Many combinations can be implemented:

- depending on number of sectors
- based on distance from macrocells
- based on known positions
- based on traffic and mobility

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 Power and spectrum management (3/3)
 Power management: the “shape” of the best server area of each
small can be optimized depending on conditions, so that overlap
between neighboring small cells is minimized.
 Solutions:
– Power control: Based on estimation of power from neighboring
cells (can be known network monitoring mode or CQI reported
by Ues)
– Idle mode: based on presence of UEs, radiated power can be
switched on only when necessary.
– Optimized antennas: small cells can use combination of
different antennas (sector antennas, patch antennas, MIMO) in
order to change direction of signal where needed.

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 Intercell interference Coordination (ICIC)
 When number of small cells is too high, power and frequency
management (interference avoidance techniques) as described
before is not always easy to implement.
 ICIC are techniques to improve coordination
 In LTE advances it is known as eICIC.
 Relies on use of two major techniques
– Picocell range expansion
– Almost blank subframes

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Picocell range expansion (RE)


In RE, UEs are able to connect to
cells which have not the strongest
signal

It is a “virtual” expansion of the
Macro small cell range.
eNB 
With RE, macrocells can be
eficiently offloaded.
Pico 
This technique requires a very good
eNB
synchronization between cells (X2 in
Picocell Range LTE) therefore used for picocells only.
Expansion

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 Almost blank subframe (ABSF)

Macro
Small cell t

With this techniques some subframes can be left empty
(except pilots so that the network keeps synchonized).

The amount of ABSF can be adapted.

ABSF can be allocated to small cells or macrocells.

In example of this figure:

When ABSF is used at macrocell layer there is no
interference with small cells. During that time, users at
the edge of the macrocell can used RE to the small cells.

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Small cell design (1/2)


When designing small cells, useful techniques can help to
manage interference.

Network Monitor mode (sniffing) is used to listen to
neighboring cells and know their parameters

GPS can be used to know position of cells

Successive interference cancellation (SIC) where the
decoded signal is successively removed from
remaining one, so that other signals can be decoded.

Advanced RF to support more bands and more
antennas.

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 Small cell design (2/2)

 HetNet (Heterogeneous Network) is not only combination of small

and big... but can also be sen as combination of standards...
 Hardware constraints.
 Advantage of system on chips
 Cost constraints.
 Energy consumption.
 Radio interface.
 Complexity of algorithms.
 Portability and reuse

[4] G. de la Roche and A. Taylor. A new wave in wireless: Small cells for a heterogeneous network. EE Times,
November 2011.
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 Self Organizing Network (1/2)
 SON in 3GPP [8]
– Network Monitor and measurement reports
– Self-configuration
– Self-organization
– Self-healing
• SON is one of the ways to handle interference (centralized vs
distributed).

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 Self Organizing Network (2/2)
 With SON interference optimization can be performed in real time
 Power control and frequency parameters can be changed
depending on:
– Statistics from UEs.
– Mobility, traffic.
– Errors in the network.

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 Perspectives

 Multi Rat small cells

 CoMP
 Carrier aggregation

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 Multi-RAT small cells
 In the future small cells will combine different technologies such as
3G, 4G, Wifi.
 Therefore in order to reduce interference, users need to be
connected to the optimal RAT.
 Changing the user from a RAT to another should be smooth.
 Example: news small cells have hotspot 2 capabilities, which can be
included in the same small cells.

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 Hotspot 2.0

 HS 2 is based on IEEE 802.11u

– Subscription Service Provider (SSP) is responsible for managing the
user’s subscription and credentials
– Homogeneous Extended Service Set ID (HESSID) which identifies BS
that belong to same network
– Access Network Query Protocol (ANQP) which allows UE to request
information

Op B Op B Op A
Wifi AAA AAA Connected
network

UE from
Operator A

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 Coordinated multi point (CoMP)
 CoMP require X2 interface but is very efficient was to reduce
interference. With CoMP, neighboring cells can perform beam
forming in a synchronized way.

Coordinated Multi-Points Joint scheduling/Beamforming

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 Carrier aggregation (CA)

20MHz

F
Rel 8
Continuous
Non
continuous
Multiple
bands

CA is introduced in LTE Rel10 where bands up to 100 MHz can

be used (larger bands are expected in future)

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 Carrier aggregation (2/2)
 CA brings a new dimension to all interference avoidance and
mitigation techniques.
– Larger spectrum makes it easier to avoid overlap between small
cells
– Larger spectrum makes it more challenging:
• RF design is an issue.
• Synchronization is an issue.

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 Conclusion
 Interference is an important issue in small cells.
 Current solutions to mitigate interference are
– Power management
– Spectrum and frequency management
– Receiver design and SON
– ICIC
 In future small cells will also use:
– More RATs (e.g., combines with Wifi)
– More coordination (CoMP) due to X2 interface
– More spectrum (CA)
 This will give to chances to fight against interference but new
techniques will have to be proposed.
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Thanks !

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