In this letter, we propose a novel resource allocation scheme to enhance downlink system performance for orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) and time division duplex (TDD) based femtocell networks. In the proposed scheme, the macro base station (mBS) and femto base stations (fBSs) service macro user equipments (mUEs) and femto user equipments (fUEs) in inner and outer zones in different periods to reduce interference substantially. Simulations show the proposed scheme outperforms femtocell networks with fractional frequency reuse (FFR) systems in terms of the system capacity and outage probability for mUEs and fUEs.

An interference-aware dynamic channel assignment scheme is proposed with consideration of co-tier interference for the downlink of an OFDMA/FDD based dense small-cell network. The proposed scheme adaptively assigns subchannels to the small-cell user equipment (SUE) according to the given traffic load and interference effect from neighbor small-cell access points. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the other schemes based on the graph coloring algorithm in terms of the mean SUE capacity.

Cognitive radio is one of the most promising wireless technologies and has been recognized as a new way to improve the spectral efficiency of wireless networks. In a cognitive radio network, secondary users exchange control information for network coordination such as transmitter-receiver handshakes, for sharing spectrum sensing results, for neighbor discovery, to maintain connectivity, and so on. Spectrum utilization and resource optimizations thus rely on information exchange among secondary users. Normally, secondary users exchange the control information via a predefined channel, called a common control channel (CCC). Most of the medium access control (MAC) protocols for cognitive radio networks were designed by assuming the existence of a CCC, and further assuming that it was available for every secondary user. However, the main drawback of using a static CCC is it is susceptible to primary user activities since the channel can be occupied by primary users at any time. In this paper, we propose a MAC protocol for cognitive radio networks with dynamic control channel assignment, called DYN-MAC. In DYN-MAC, a control channel is dynamically assigned based on spectrum availability. Thus, it can tolerate primary user activities. DYN-MAC also supports collision free network-wide broadcasting and addresses other major problems such as primary/secondary user hidden terminal problems.

In dense femtocell networks (DFNs), one of the main issues is interference management since interference between femtocell access points (FAPs) reduces the system performance significantly. Further, FAPs serve different numbers of femtocell user equipments (FUEs), i.e., some FAPs have more than one FUE while others have one or no FUEs. Therefore, for DFNs, an intelligent channel assignment scheme is necessary considering both the number of FUEs connected to the same FAPs and interference mitigation to improve system performance. This paper proposes a two-stage dynamic channel assignment (TS-DCA) scheme for downlink DFNs based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access/frequency division duplex (OFDMA/FDD). In stage 1, using graph coloring algorithm, a femtocell gateway (FGW) first groups FUEs based on an interference graph that considers different numbers of FUEs per FAP. Then, in stage 2, the FGW dynamically assigns subchannels to FUE clusters according to the order of maximum capacity of FAP clusters. In addition, FAPs adaptively assign remaining subchannels in FUE clusters to their FUEs in other FUE clusters. Through simulations, we first find optimum parameters of the FUE clustering to maximize the system capacity and then evaluate system performance in terms of the mean FUE capacity, unsatisfied FUE probability, and mean FAP transmission energy consumption according to the different numbers of FUEs and FAPs with a given FUE traffic load.