Energy-efficient design of two-tier femtocell networks

Abstract

With the exponential increase in mobile internet traffic, future cellular networks face great challenges to satisfy the demand of network capacity. At the same time, high data rate transmission and rapid increasing number of users also seriously burden the power consumption and the cost of cellular networks. Base station (BS) is the main part of power consumption, so reducing energy consumption of the BS can obviously reduce the total energy consumption. This paper investigates the effect on energy efficiency by adopting activity-aware sleeping strategies both in macrocell base station (MBS) and femtocell access point (FAP) in a two-tier femtocell network. By using stochastic geometry, we develop a trade-off between energy saving and coverage extension, regarded as the FAP additional connections by neighboring femtocell user equipment (FUE) or macrocell user equipment (MUE). Specifically, we derive users' coverage probabilities, which is defined as the probability of user connecting to BS, in closed forms with different sleeping strategies and access policies. Moreover, we formulate power consumption minimization and energy efficiency problem and determine the optimal joint MBS-FAP operating regimes. Numerical results show that sleeping scheme and femtocell access mode both have effects on coverage probability and energy efficiency, and the effect of femtocell access mode on coverage probability is greater than sleeping scheme.

Energy sustainable paradigms and methods for future mobile networks: A survey

“…For instance, a set of BS switching patterns engineered to provide full network coverage at all times, while avoiding channel outage, is presented in [43]. The coverage probability, along with power consumption and energy efficiency metrics, are derived using stochastic geometry in [44], [45], [46]. A similar approach is considered in [47], where closed-form expressions of coverage probability and average user load are attained through stochastic geometry.…”

TV white space and its applications in future wireless networks and communications: a survey

“…In [80], an optimal combination of ON/OFF mode for a base station and power source switching strategies is designed for a two‐tier femtocell network in order to achieve the trade‐off between grid power consumption and user's QoS. The effect on energy efficiency is investigated by adopting activity‐aware sleeping strategies in a two‐tier femtocell network in [81]. Although some works have been done to investigate the energy efficiency, most of them are done in the WiFi environment for the femtocell network.…”

“…Energy efficiency characterisation: As stated in [78], the power consumption of all base stations will reach 2.2 × 10 11 kWh by 2016, releasing millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. In order to save energy and reduce carbon dioxide emission, more and more researchers are concerned about energy efficiency [79][80][81][82]. In [79], a generic model is proposed to study the problem of achieving both bandwidth efficiency and energy efficiency in the femtocell network.…”

Hierarchical power allocation algorithm for D2D‐based cellular networks with heterogeneous statistical quality‐of‐service constraints

“…In order to make full use of heterogeneous network resources, advanced wireless resource allocation algorithm will be needed. The carbon emissions of information and communication technology will account for 4–6% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, so energy resources need to be focused on and be used more reasonable [3]. In addition, meeting the quality‐of‐service (QoS) requirements of different services to improve the user experience is one of the most important requirements of 5G networks.…”