In this article device-to-device (D2D) communication underlaying a 3GPP LTE-Advanced cellular network is studied as an enabler of local services with limited interference impact on the primary cellular network. The approach of the study is a tight integration of D2D communication into an LTE-Advanced network. In particular, we propose mechanisms for D2D communication session setup and management involving procedures in the LTE System Architecture Evolution. Moreover, we present numerical results based on system simulations in an interference limited local area scenario. Our results show that D2D communication can increase the total throughput observed in the cell area.
Device-to-Device Communication as an Underlay to LTE-Advanced NetworksIn the feasibility analysis we studied D2D communication in a local area cellular network. Even though the cellular network may be interference limited already by the cellular communication alone, the D2D peers are still able to use the D2D communication opportunity if they are close and located in the same room.
In this article we propose to facilitate local peer-to-peer communication by a Device-to-Device (D2D) radio that operates as an underlay network to an IMT-Advanced cellular network. It is expected that local services may utilize mobile peer-to-peer communication instead of central server based communication for rich multimedia services. The main challenge of the underlay radio in a multi-cell environment is to limit the interference to the cellular network while achieving a reasonable link budget for the D2D radio. We propose a novel power control mechanism for D2D connections that share cellular uplink resources. The mechanism limits the maximum D2D transmit power utilizing cellular power control information of the devices in D2D communication. Thereby it enables underlaying D2D communication even in interference-limited networks with full load and without degrading the performance of the cellular network. Secondly, we study a single cell scenario consisting of a device communicating with the base station and two devices that communicate with each other. The results demonstrate that the D2D radio, sharing the same resources as the cellular network, can provide higher capacity (sum rate) compared to pure cellular communication where all the data is transmitted through the base station.
In heterogeneous cellular scenarios with macrocells, femtocells or picocells users may suffer from significant co-channel cross-tier interference. To manage this interference 3GPP introduced almost blank subframe (ABSF), a subframe in which the interferer tier is not allowed to transmit data. Vulnerable users thus get a chance to be scheduled in ABSFs with reduced cross-tier interference. We analyze downlink scenarios using stochastic geometry and formulate a condition for the required number of ABSFs based on base station placement statistics and user throughput requirement. The result is a semi-analytical formula that serves as a good initial estimate and offers an easy way to analyze impact of network parameters. We show that while in macro/femto scenario the residue ABSF interference can be well managed, in macro/pico scenario it affects the number of required ABSFs strongly. The effect of ABSFs is subsequently demonstrated via user throughput simulations. Especially in the macro/pico scenario, we find that using ABSFs is advantageous for the system since victim users no longer suffer from poor performance for the price of relatively small drop in higher throughput percentiles.
Index TermsAlmost blank subframe, interference management, heterogeneous network, HetNet;
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