An accurate performance analysis of an FFR scheme in the downlink of cellular systems under large-shadowing effect

Benoît Pijcke (1) , Marc G. Gazalet (1) , Marie Zwingelstein (1) , François-Xavier Coudoux (1)

1 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520

We address the problem of analyzing the performances of interference-limited cellular networks in large-scale shadowing environments. Focusing on the fractional frequency reuse (FFR) framework, we examine how to optimally assign mobile users in a cell either to the full frequency reuse part or to the orthogonal part of the FFR band. Instead of using traditional Monte Carlo simulations, which do not provide sufficiently accurate results under important shadowing, we propose a fast and accurate numerical method. We consider a fast-fading environment and we use the ergodic capacity as the performance measure. Applying a distributed power control and scheduling strategy, we examine both cases where access points have knowledge of partial- or full-channel state information (CSI); for the latter, we also propose an approximated waterfilling strategy. The interest of our method lies in the fact that it allows for a fast and accurate analysis of the performances of FFR. In addition, it takes into account a broad range of shadowing environments.

Mots clés: Wireless networks; Intercell interference; Fractional frequency reuse; Rayleigh fading; Lognormal shadowing; Ergodic capacity

Domaines: Traitement du signal et de l'image [eess.SP]

Benoît Pijcke, Marc G. Gazalet, Marie Zwingelstein, François-Xavier Coudoux. An accurate performance analysis of an FFR scheme in the downlink of cellular systems under large-shadowing effect. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking, 2013, 2013, pp.48. ⟨10.1186/1687-1499-2013-48⟩. ⟨hal-00823031⟩