To cope with ever growing mobile data traffic, we recently proposed a concept of cellular ultra-dense radio access network (RAN). In the cellular ultra-dense RAN, a number of distributed antennas are deployed in the base station (BS) coverage area (cell) and user-clusters are formed to perform small-scale distributed multiuser multi-input multi-output (MU-MIMO) transmission and reception in each user-cluster in parallel using the same frequency resource. We also proposed a decentralized interference coordination (IC) framework to effectively mitigate both intra-cell and inter-cell interferences caused in the cellular ultra-dense RAN. The inter-cell IC adopted in this framework is the fractional frequency reuse (FFR), realized by applying the channel segregation (CS) algorithm, and is called CS-FFR in this paper. CS-FFR divides the available bandwidth into several sub-bands and allocates multiple sub-bands to different cells. In this paper, focusing on the optimization of the CS-FFR, we find by computer simulation the optimum bandwidth division number and the sub-band allocation ratio to maximize the link capacity. We also discuss the convergence speed of CS-FFR in a cellular ultra-dense RAN.

Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR), which was introduced by 3GPP is considered the powerful technique to improve user performance. However, implementation of FFR is a challenge due to strong dependence between base stations (BSs) in terms of resource allocations. This paper studies a modified and flexible FFR scheme that allows all BSs works independently. The analytical and simulation results prove that the modified FFR scheme outperforms the conventional FFR.

This letter proposes a novel dynamic channel assignment (DCA) scheme to improve the downlink system capacity in heterogeneous networks (HetNets) with fractional frequency reuse (FFR). In the proposed DCA scheme, the macro base station (MBS) finds small-cell base stations (SBSs) that give strong interference to macro user equipments (MUEs) and then dynamically assigns subchannels to the SBSs to serve their small-cell user equipments (SUEs) according to the cross-tier interference information to MUEs. Through simulation results, it is shown that the proposed DCA scheme outperforms other schemes in terms of the total system capacity.

The pilot contamination is a serious problem which hinders the capacity increasing in the massive MIMO system. Similar to Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) in the OFDMA system, Fractional Pilot Reuse (FPR) is proposed for the massive MIMO system. The FPR can be further classified as the strict FPR and soft FPR. Meanwhile, the detailed FPR schemes with pilot assignment and the mathematical models are provided. With FPR, the capacity and the transmission quality can be improved with metrics such as the higher Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) of the pilots, the higher coverage probability, and the higher system capacity.

We propose an inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) method that employs inter-cell coordinated transmission power control (TPC) based on inter-cell interference power in addition to conventional received signal power-based TPC in the cellular uplink. We assume orthogonal multiple-access as is used in 3GPP LTE. In the proposed method, an ICIC effect similar to that for conventional fractional frequency reuse (FFR) is obtained. This is achieved by coordinating the allowable inter-cell interference power level at the appropriate frequency blocks within the system bandwidth among neighboring cells in a semi-static manner. Different from conventional FFR, since all users within a cell can access all the frequency blocks, the reduction in multiuser diversity gain is abated. Computer simulation results show that the proposed method enhances both the cell-edge and average user throughput simultaneously compared to conventional universal frequency reuse (UFR) and FFR.

Single Carrier — Frequency Domain Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) is a multiple access technique employed in LTE uplink transmission. SC-FDMA can improve system throughput by frequency selective scheduling (FSS). In cellular systems using SC-FDMA in the uplink, interference arising from user equipments (UEs) in neighboring cells degrades the system throughput, especially the throughput of cell-edge UEs. In order to overcome this drawback, many papers have considered fractional frequency reuse (FFR) techniques and analyzed their effectiveness. However, these studies have come to different conclusions regarding the effectiveness of FFR because the throughput gain of FFR depends on the frequency reuse design and evaluation conditions. Previous papers have focused on the frequency reuse design. Few papers have examined the conditions where FFR is effective, and only the UE traffic conditions have been evaluated. This paper reveals other conditions where FFR is effective by demonstrating the throughput gain of FFR. In order to analyze the throughput gain of FFR, we focus on the throughput relationship between FFR and FSS. System level simulation results demonstrate that FFR is effective when the following conditions are met: (i) the number of UEs is small and (ii) the multipath delay spread is large or close to 0.

This paper proposes applying our inter-cell interference (ICI) cancellation method to fractional frequency reuse (FFR) and evaluates the resulting spectral efficiency improvement. With our ICI cancellation method based on base station cooperation, the control station generates ICI replica signals by simple linear processing. Moreover, FFR effectively utilizes frequency resources by both allowing users in the cell-center region to access all available sub-channels and increasing the transmission power to users in the cell-edge region. FFR provides the conditions under which the ICI cancellation method works effectively. Computer simulations show that the average spectral efficiency of the proposed method is comparable to that of cooperative MU-MIMO, which can completely remove ICI.

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.

Continuously increasing the bandwidth to enhance the capacity is impractical because of the scarcity of spectrum availability. Fortunately, on the basis of the characteristics of the multihop cellular networks (MCNs), a new compact frequency reuse scheme has been proposed to provide higher spectrum utilization efficiency and larger capacity without increasing the cost on network. Base stations (BSs) and relay stations (RSs) could transmit simultaneously on the same frequency according to the compact frequency reuse scheme. In this situation, however, mobile stations (MSs) near the coverage boundary will suffer serious interference and their traffic quality can hardly be guaranteed. In order to mitigate the interference while maintaining high spectrum utilization efficiency, this paper introduces a fractional frequency reuse (FFR) scheme into multihop cellular networks, in which the principle of FFR scheme and characteristics of frequency resources configurations are described, then the transmission (Tx) power consumption of BS and RSs is analyzed. The proposed scheme can both meet the requirement of high traffic load in future cellular system and maximize the benefit by reducing the Tx power consumption. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed FFR in compact frequency reuse achieves higher cell coverage probability and larger capacity with respect to the conventional schemes.

We describe a user scheduling scheme suitable for zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF) downlink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) transmissions in time-division-duplex distributed antenna systems. This user scheduling scheme consists of inter-cell-interference mitigation scheduling by using fractional frequency reuse, proportional fair scheduling in the OFDM frequency domain, and high-capacity ZFBF-MU-MIMO scheduling by using zero-forcing with selection (ZFS). Simulation results demonstrate in a severe user-distribution condition that includes cell-edge users that the proposed user scheduling scheme achieves high average cell throughputs close to that provided by only ZFS and that it also achieves almost the same degree of user fairness as round-robin user scheduling.

The present paper focuses on the application of the base station cooperation (BSC) technique in fractional frequency reuse (FFR) networks. Fractional frequency reuse is considered to be a promising scheme for avoiding the inter-cell interference problem in OFDMA cellular systems, such as WiMAX, in which the edge mobile stations (MSs) of adjacent cells use different subchannels for separate transmission. However, the problem of FFR is that the cell edge spectral efficiency (SE) is much lower than that of the cell center. The BSC technique, in which adjacent BSs perform cooperative transmission for one cell edge MS with the same channel, may improve the cell edge SE. However, since more BSs transmit signals for one cell edge MS, the use of BSC can also increase the inter-cell interference, which might degrade the network performance. In this paper, with a focus on this tradeoff, we propose an adaptive BSC scheme in which BSC is only performed for the cell edge MSs that can achieve a significant capacity increase with only a slight increase in inter-cell interference. Moreover, a channel reallocation scheme is proposed in order to further improve the performance of the adaptive BSC scheme. The simulation results reveal that, compared to the conventional FFR scheme, the proposed schemes are effective for improving the performance of FFR networks.

Employing fractional frequency reuse (FFR) in OFDMA cellular systems is very attractive since it offers large capacity and single cell frequency reuse. However, its performance in practical environments, e.g. scheduling and arbitrary cell configurations, has not been well revealed. This paper analyzes the theoretical capacity and outage rate of an OFDMA cellular system employing FFR. Numerical examples show that FFR achieves higher capacity than the non-FFR equivalent when the outage rate is low.

Some wireless OFDMA communication systems support the frequency reuse factor of 1. In order to reduce co-channel interference (CCI) caused by neighbor cells, the fractional frequency reuse (FFR) can be employed. A promising frequency partitioning policy and subcarrier allocation for FFR are essential. In this letter, we employ an efficient frequency partitioning mechanism with less interference and propose an efficient subcarrier allocation algorithm to maximize the sum of users capacity under FFR. We show that the proposed algorithm has higher spectral efficiency than the conventional method as well as significantly high system fairness.

We present a novel frequency partitioning technique of fractional frequency reuse (FFR) that reduces the effect of co-channel interference and increases the capacity of OFDM systems. The usable sub-channel sets are classified into the common sub-channel sets for all cells and the dedicated sub-channel sets for specific cell types in FFR. The proposed fractional frequency reuse with ordering scheme (FFRO) can decrease the amount of interference in the common sub-channel sets by specially designing the sub-channel sets and the order of sub-channel assignment for specific cell types. Simulation results show that the proposed FFRO yields enhanced performance for both uniform and non-uniform distributions of traffic load.

Some OFDMA-based wireless commuication systems, e.g., Wireless Broadband Internet (WiBro) or Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), support frequency reuse of 1 to maximize spectral efficiency. One of the efficient methods to reduce co-channel interference (CCI) caused by frequency reuse is fractional frequency reuse (FFR). In this paper, we propose and validate a novel frequency partitioning method and subcarrier assignment mechanism to improve system and individual capacity of mobile systems using FFR.