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IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 15, NO.
2, SECOND QUARTER 2013
701
On the Evolution of Multi-Cell Scheduling in 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

Emmanouil Pateromichelakis, Mehrdad Shariat, Atta ul Quddus, and Rahim Tafazolli, Member, IEEE
AbstractThis paper provides a holistic overview of multi-cell scheduling strategies in emerging wireless systems. Towards this objective, the evolution of interference management techniques is thoroughly investigated from simple inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) techniques towards more advanced coordinated multipoint transmissions (CoMP), while comparing and contrasting their common features and differences. Finally CoMP is explored in detail as an advanced and challenging mechanism to fully cooperate between adjacent cells in order to have an efcient resource allocation and inter-cell interference mitigation in multi-cell environments. Index TermsLTE, LTE-Advanced, ICIC, CoMP
I. I NTRODUCTION HE EVOLUTION of mobile wireless networks during the last several years has raised great expectations for higher data rates to the mobile users. However, the widespread demand for data in the upcoming years inevitably leads to the so-called Spectrum Crisis [1]. This crisis is foreseen as the failure to meet the drastic increase of coverage and capacity demands in wireless networks in future. Hence the evolution of 3G mobile technologies to next generation networks (4G) can be seen as a feasible remedy to this problem by increasing the spectrum re-use in conjunction with the improvement of spectral efciency [2]. In 2008, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has identied IMT-Advanced as a set of technical requirements [3] in order to better characterize the typical next generation candidate system. In this direction, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) targeted the investigation and standardization of the candidate emerging wireless technologies that are in line with IMT-Advanced, namely Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-A. The key technical components that make LTE and LTE-A superior over 3G technologies is the efcient use of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) combined with Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) smart antennas in downlink and uplink radio transmissions. Another important aspect of the aforementioned technologies is the new deployment strategy using heterogeneous networks. This deployment includes a hybrid of macro, femto and relay basestations to improve spectral efciency and provide a uniform broadband experience to the users throughout a network. LTE was rst specied in 3GPP Release 8 [4] and can be identied as a rst step towards IMT-Advanced. Later on
Fig. 1.
Downlink Interference in a multi-cell environment
3GPP Rel. 10, LTE-A [5] came along as a further enhancement of LTE where it targets to outperform IMT-Advanced requirements. The enhancements of LTE-A over LTE concern the increase of capacity and spectral efciency as well as the energy efciency and the cost reduction for the network operator. As described above, LTE and LTE-A are envisioned as key technologies to meet the drastic coverage and capacity future demands in wireless cellular networks. However, to achieve the ambitious future targets, there are some challenging issues ahead that may slow down this migration process. A. Inter-cell Interference One of the major issues towards the deployment of LTE technology is the inter-cell interference caused by neighboring base stations (BSs) that can signicantly deteriorate the performance of near-by mobile User Equipments (UEs). In the following example in Fig. 1 as a user approaches its cell-edge, he suffers from high inter-cell interference from neighboring cells (BS2, BS3). This happens due to the signal attenuation the user experiences in long distance from its serving BS as well as the strong interference by surrounding cells. This issue essentially requires applying efcient radio resource management strategies to decrease inter-cell interference (ICI) and alternatively convert it into useful signal by means of coordinated processing. The signicance of inter-cell interference in emerging wireless technologies has also been emphasized in recent literature [6]. As discussed there, interference can be a major challenge
Manuscript received 24 August 2011; revised 3 February 2012 and 15 May 2012. The authors are with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR), University of Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom. (e-mail:{e.pateromichelakis, m.shariat, a.quddus, r.tafazolli}@surrey.ac.uk). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/SURV.2012.071812.00127
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IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 15, NO. 2, SECOND QUARTER 2013
that degrades the overall performance in a hierarchical multilevel network. As a result, tight interference management is crucial to increase spectral efciency throughout the network. In general, Interference Management can be grouped to three main categories [7] that handle ICI through different mitigation techniques, namely ICI randomization, cancellation and coordination (avoidance). The latter is further examined in this review paper as an effective method to mitigate ICI and to enhance the degraded users performance. B. Motivation and Related Works Intra-cell scheduling and resource allocation gets affected by an external inter-cell factor, i.e. the interference that is quite dependent on the location of users and their QoS requirements in the entire system. In a full load scenario, intercell interference can signicantly affect the efciency of intracell scheduling algorithms [8]. As a result, interference management is crucial to maintain minimum service requirements. This is referred to as multi-cell scheduling, where other cells channel knowledge and parameters are taken into account to mitigate interference. In this manner, multi-cell scheduling can be considered as an upper layer on top of classical intra-cell scheduling strategies. Several review papers in literature [6], [9], [10] discuss inter-cell interference coordination in the context of emerging wireless technologies. In [6], the authors described the interference coordination schemes and technical challenges that arise in heterogeneous networks highlighting the impact of interference in deployments consisting of cells of different size. Moreover, [9] presents a survey on interference coordination in OFDM-based multi-hop cellular networks with main focus on semi-static interference coordination schemes that could be applied at LTE-A. Furthermore, [10] discusses in general terms scheduling through Interference Avoidance / Coordination to mitigate interference in a multi-cell environment. Hence, to the best of our knowledge, a holistic survey on multi-cell scheduling and interference coordination with particular focus on LTE /LTE-A systems is not currently available. Additionally, this survey provides an extensive evaluation of multi-cell scheduling and bridges the gap between ICIC and CoMP mechanisms as the key enablers in LTE and LTE-A. C. Scope and Structure of the Survey In this survey, Multi-cell scheduling in terms of interference coordination / avoidance is presented as a roadmap that begins with the review of popular low-complexity ICI Coordination (ICIC) schemes proposed in the literature. Thereafter, it proceeds through more sophisticated dynamic ICIC solutions and nally is directed towards Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) transmission as an advanced way of interference management for 4G technologies. The main focus will be on the area of downlink interference coordination in the context of emerging multi-cell scheduling policies for LTE /LTE-A systems. The scope of this survey can be highlighted using the following axes: Holistic categorization of ICIC and presenting major proposals for LTE.
Fig. 2.
Interference Coordination and Cooperation Overview
Classication of CoMP and presenting major proposals for LTE and LTE-A. Introduction of a multi-cell scheduling framework, comprising downlink interference coordination (ICIC) and cooperation (CoMP) mechanisms. Detailed exploration of Dynamic-ICIC and CoMP techniques as future research directions for interference mitigation in LTE-A. Fig. 2 provides an illustrative picture of this survey study, highlighting the structure and involved elements. Here, the evolution of ICIC towards CoMP is illustrated in terms of capacity versus complexity trade-off. More details on the quantication of capacity for LTE, IMT-Advanced systems can be found in [3]. Following this gradual migration, it can be seen that simple interference coordination schemes, requiring limited information on the control channel, have evolved into more sophisticated cooperation schemes (coordinated Beamforming and Joint Processing) where the level of sharing has also scaled up to the data channel to further enhance spectral efciency [3]. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section II, ICIC techniques are detailed and categorized to static, semi-static and dynamic-ICIC schemes based on the time scale of updates as well as the level of signaling involved. In Section III, the study is further extended into more advanced schemes based on CoMP with particular focus on the downlink CoMP schemes where Coordinated Scheduling and Joint Processing schemes are investigated. Thereafter, in Section IV, downlink CoMP schemes are further examined and major challenges and issues are addressed. Section V underlines the open research problems that arise due to interference coordination and cooperation in future wireless cellular systems. Finally, Section VI provides a summary and conclusions of this survey.
II. I NTER - CELL I NTERFERENCE C OORDINATION (ICIC) In OFDM networks, ICIC has been introduced as a potential strategy to control the level of downlink ICI. In concept, ICIC denes a coordination mechanism among the neighboring cells to allocate orthogonal resources to their overlapping highly interfered areas. In this framework, two sub-mechanisms can be identied in each ICIC scheme, namely Frequency Reuse Partitioning and Power Control.
PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A
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Fig. 3.
Partial Frequency Reuse Fig. 4. Soft Frequency Reuse N=3
In Frequency Reuse Partitioning [11], the spectrum is divided into two or more groups of mutually exclusive sets allocated to different regions. On the other hand, Power control in ICIC schemes provides multiple levels of transmission power to different cell areas, already identied by the reuse partitioning schemes. This enables the BSs to adaptively tune their transmit power based on the location of users. The power adjustment provided by the BS, combined with frequency reuse partitioning, can mitigate quite efciently the cell-edge ICI. Considering the required level of coordination between BSs, two types of coordination strategies can be identied: Centralized Coordination that relies on a Centralized Controller to gather channels quality information from BSs where it allocates the spectrum to them in ways to alleviate intercell interference. This coordinator in the context of previous technologies, like HSPA, UMTS could be integrated as part of Radio Network Controller (RNC) entity. In LTE, this legacy centralized coordination is not encouraged due to the lack of RNC, however, some resource allocation algorithms have been proposed for LTE by using Mobility Management Entity (MME) as the Coordinator [7]. In Distributed Coordination, on the other hand, there is a direct coordination between adjacent base stations to handle interference and to allocate resources efciently to the celledge users. This can be achieved through a new interface that is introduced in LTE standard termed as X2 interface [5]. From a different perspective, ICIC Mechanisms can be characterized by the frequency of decisions that are made by base stations. Based on this categorization, three distinct levels of ICIC can be identied: Static, Semi-Static and Dynamic ICIC. In the following sub-section, a brief review on the state of the art for each category is provided. A. Static ICIC Considering the static ICIC, resource allocation is xed and does not depend on the variations of channel and trafc. The main solutions of this category have been proposed earlier in ([12]-[17]) for LTE systems and are briey described below. Mainly, two partition-based static coordination schemes have been proposed, namely Partial Frequency Reuse (PFR) [12], [13] and Soft Frequency Reuse (SFR) [14], [15]. A fundamental static-ICIC mechanism and promising solution for 3GPP LTE is Partial Frequency Reuse (PFR) scheme [12], [13]. PFR is a mechanism that targets the inter-cell interference mitigation by fractionally assigning frequency sub-bands to cell sites through static frequency planning. PFR
shares some common features with the Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) concept was discussed in [11].This concept is to split the total bandwidth in two parts i.e. Cell-Center Area (CCA) and Cell-Edge Area (CEA). Users in CCA with higher signal quality and lower level of interference can use lower reuse factor to achieve better spectral efciency, while CEA users with lower SINR utilize higher reuse factor to alleviate resulting ICI. In PFR, the total spectrum N is divided between cell center, Ncenter and cell edge, Nedge such that N= Ncenter + Nedge . The Ncenter sub-bands are dedicated for cell-center users in low power mode whereas Nedge are further partitioned based on the sectorization of the cell-edges. As shown in Fig. 3, for 3-sectored cells, each sector utilizes Ncenter /3 of subbands in high power mode. This scheme manages to isolate inter-cell interference by restricting the utilization of resources at cell-edges. However this restriction limits the maximum throughput available to the users since they cannot benet from the utilization of the full bandwidth. On the other hand, Soft Frequency Reuse (SFR) deals with this issue by enabling each cell to utilize the full bandwidth. SFR was rst introduced for GSM and then adopted by 3GPP as an ICIC method for LTE [14]. The concept of SFR is the division of the spectrum in N bands where cell-center users can utilize all the bands in low power mode (low-power band), while the cell-edge users can utilize only 1/N of the spectrum with frequency reuse of N (high-power band). In addition to that, the unutilized part of high- power band in CEA can also be used by cell-center users while they do not create any interference to adjacent frequency bands. Hence, when compared to PFR, SFR enables the system to maximize capacity by utilizing full bandwidth rather than restricting the utilization in a part of resources. In [14], [15] the soft reuse proposals for LTE adopted the division of the entire spectrum in N=3 bands as can be seen in Fig. 4. Another variant of SFR was presented in [16], [17] by Alcatel where the spectrum is divided to N=7 or 9 sub-bands in 3-sectored cells. Each sector is restricted to one sub-band that is orthogonal across the adjacent CEAs. This restriction corresponds to a power restriction for that sub-band. In this context, when a user of a neighboring sector approaches the borders of its cell it is just allowed to utilize the frequency subband restricted to the adjacent sector. Therefore the restricted sub-band is used only at the centre of each sector whereas
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Fig. 5.
Alcatel Proposal TABLE I S TATIC ICIC SCHEMES

Sub-bands
CCA CEA
Parameters
Power Profile
CCA
Low Low Low
Spectrum Utilization
CEA
High High High
ICIC Schemes
CCA N N edge N 100% ~ 15%
CEA N edge N 33% ~ 85%
PFR [12,13] SFR [14,15] Alcatel [16,17]
N N edge
3
1
N edge
1
6
*CCA = Cell Centre Area, *CEA = Cell Edge Area
the rest of sub-bands are allocated at the edges corresponding to the adjacent sectors restrictions. The frequency planning as well as the power prole for this mechanism is illustrated in Fig. 5. Table I shows a qualitative comparison of the three aforementioned static schemes. Here, we compare all the proposals based on the frequency partitioning between CCA and CEA as well as the power prole and spectrum utilization in corresponding areas. As can be seen above, Alcatel proposal is a more aggressive strategy that targets higher spectrum utilization at the cell edge via sub-band restriction at the cost of partially addressing inter-cell interference. On the other hand, SFR favors the cell center users, by allocating entire available spectrum to the cell center areas. PFR can be seen as a more cautious avoidance scheme, where the spectrum is partitioned into two mutually exclusive parts. This is performed in a way that cell edge and cell center areas do not have any conicts. As a result, the overall cell utilization is affected by limiting the amount of sub-bands that can be used in each area. B. Semi-Static ICIC In semi-static schemes, resource allocation is adaptive based on the trafc changes across different areas in a cell. Therefore signaling between BSs is exchanged semi-statically. Some
popular semi-static ICIC schemes ([18]-[23]) applied to LTE networks, are described below, characterizing the ICIC implementations in 3GPP LTE. The rst proposal [18] discusses the simplest semi-static mechanism where in each cell, CCA and CEAs as well as CEAs of neighboring cells utilize orthogonal parts of the spectrum. Here, the spectrum is divided into N sub-bands; a sub-set of X sub-bands is allocated to cell-edge users orthogonally across the neighboring cells whereas the rest N3X is allocated to cell-center users. The number of sub-bands is adjustable by BSs and depends on the trafc load. Therefore this proposal resembles a fractional reuse partitioning method whereas a semi-static coordination between neighboring BSs dictates the number of resources to be allocated for each cell-edge and thus cell-centre areas. The main drawback of this mechanism is related to the limitation on the maximum capacity to be achieved by a user in this orthogonal allocation. The aforementioned proposal is illustrated in Fig. 6. Some other proposals try to rectify this drawback via incorporating semi-static variants of SFR. Firstly, the Whispering approach [19] targets the spectrum utilization by assigning resources at the CEAs in a way to prevent interference towards the adjacent cells. Subsequently, the relation between CCA and CEA is kept orthogonal. This is done by partitioning the cell-edge areas into six sectors. Here, the spectrum is divided into 4 sub-bands where multiple power modes could be applied to each sub-band (W or S). This corresponds to the creation of eight available groups for scheduling purposes i.e. W1-W4 (Low power mode) and S1S4 groups (High power mode). More specically, cell-center users of each cell site can use one band out of W1- W4 available bands in low power, while cell edge users utilize three bands out of S1- S4 in high power mode provided that two non-adjacent sectors cannot share the same band. To address this issue, [20] provides a centralized semi-static ICIC solution for LTE, in which a central entity reserves a variable portion of the available sub-bands to cell-edge users depending upon the cell-edge trafc load. This number of the
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TABLE II S EMI -S TATIC ICIC SCHEMES
Fig. 6.
Semi-static ICIC Proposal
reserved sub-bands varies from null, if trafc in cell edge is negligible up to 1/3 of the spectrum, for the orthogonal subband allocation between neighbor cells, whereas users at cellcenter areas can utilize all the bands in reduced power. In case that the reserved sub-bands for all the cells are equal to the 1/3 of the spectrum, this mechanism resembles the Soft Frequency re-use scheme that was presented in Fig. 4. In a similar manner, Softer Frequency Reuse (SerFR) is another semi-static proposal that applies some modications in SFR as in [21], [22] in order to achieve more frequency selective gain. In this proposal both cell-center and cell-edge users can utilize full spectrum but through various power proles. Similar to SFR concept that was illustrated in Fig. 4, there are two power proles that determine the frequency subbands to be used in CCAs and CEAs. However, in this scheme cell-edge users can additionally utilize sub-bands in lowpower prole. Here, a distinguishing factor from the previous proposals is the possibility of allocating extra resources to the cell-edge users. This has been modeled stochastically by the denition of a probability factor that changes gradually by the trafc. In similar manner, cell-center users can benet from this feature by additionally utilizing the high power sub-bands belonging to CEAs when the trafc load is unevenly lower at the cell-edge. Another popular semi-static ICIC [23], namely Adaptive Fractional Frequency Reuse combines soft frequency reuse in a semi-static multi-mode case. This scheme can be distinguished from the aforementioned semi-static schemes, as it does not divide the cell into center and edge areas. In this scheme, each cell is divided to 3 sectored areas and each sector is tuned in one of the four available modes. These modes, as shown in Fig. 8, represent the level of aggressiveness of each BS towards spectrum utilization. In rst mode, the default mode of operation, sectors utilize full spectrum (reuse 1). In modes 2 and 3, SFR is used with different power levels for the soft-reused sectors. The difference of modes 2 and 3 originates from the gap of power levels between high power and low power tones. Finally, in Mode 4, frequency reuse of three is applied in high transmit power. Therefore, according to the level of interference, the system can adaptively move to higher modes with lower level of spectrum reuse to mitigate the effect of interference. In Table II, we illustrate a qualitative comparison of the semi-static schemes presented above in similar manner as the static cases.
C. Dynamic ICIC The major issue in static and semi-static ICIC techniques is their failure to adapt into the fast changes in operating environment. Therefore, providing better data rates for celledge users by adopting these approaches would severely penalize the overall performance of the system. On the other hand, in Dynamic ICIC (D-ICIC) resources are allocated in a dynamic manner by BSs, without prior frequency planning where different factors like cell load, trafc distributions and QoS constraints are taken into account for a multi-cell environment. There are numerous dynamic approaches in the literature proposed to handle inter-cell interference. However, adopting the dynamic approaches in practice is more challenging for systems like LTE as dynamic coordination requires heavy signaling load. This can impose more complexity into the scheduling process. At rst place, the D-ICIC algorithms can be categorized based on the level of coordination that is required into: Centralized D-ICIC, Semi-centralized D-ICIC and De-centralized D-ICIC [24]. In practice, the rst two categories share some common characteristics but can be distinguished by the level of reliance on the centralized controller for coordination between BSs. Therefore, in semi-centralized mechanisms the existence of a central unit is necessary to handle resource conicts between cell sites; however the role of the central unit is secondary [24]. In decentralized D-ICIC [24], the scheduling decisions are made by means of local signaling exchange between BSs without involving any central unit. As mentioned above, dynamic schemes should provide fast scheduling decisions while keeping the signaling load as low as possible. However, the iterative nature of decentralized D-ICIC algorithms, make them less efcient to handle ICI in fast changing environments, due to extra cyclic signaling that is required and subsequent delays compared to global coordination. 1) Problem Description: As stated above, in the static and semi-static schemes the multi-cell scheduling notion is expressed in static or semi-static patterns of partitioning in frequency or power prole rather than global scheduling. In general terms, however, the multi-cell interference management can be seen as a multi-cell resource allocation problem that targets the maximization of total capacity or other perfor-
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Fig. 7.
Whispering
Fig. 9. Fig. 8. Adaptive FFR modes
Utility-based D-ICIC proposal
mance metrics in a multi-cell environment, subject to different constraints including interference, fairness or QoS [25]. The multi-cell resource allocation problem in presence of interference using capacity or other performance metrics as the optimization objective is a non-convex optimization problem. Although some solutions have been presented to optimally solve this problem via dual decomposition theory [26], still the proposed algorithms are computationally complex in particular in populated dense scenarios. Therefore, we focus on two categories of efcient sub-optimal solutions for dynamic ICIC that are more feasible in cellular environment for different practical cases: 2) Utility-based solutions: In literature, the problem of resource allocation as detailed above has been mapped into utility maximization framework [27], [28]. The network utility function is quite well known in literature as an indicator of users satisfaction, based on different factors including channel quality, experienced delay and other QoS requirements. Utility optimization in a multi-cell environment can be dened in similar context as capacity maximization subject to the capacity limit and interference constraints. The notion of network utility is dened as a metric to balance capacity, fairness and QoS efciently in a multi-cell environment. In this context, each BS forms a utility matrix that embeds the utility values corresponding to all attached users for different Resource Blocks (RBs). This information depends on the channel quality experienced by each user as well as
the demand factor and QoS requirements imposed by user application. The elements of each matrix are dependent to other matrices in neighboring BSs due to interference effect. In literature ([29]-[33]), there are various proposals targeting efcient resolution of the utility matrices by taking into consideration the coupling effect of inter-cell interference. In some proposals, the solution can be seen as a two-stage scheduling mechanism where channel restrictions are imposed on highly coupled elements across matrices on top of intra-cell scheduling to decouple the problem. In this group of schemes the utility matrix is initially created independently in each BS to pre-allocate resources to users based on their corresponding channel and QoS requirements. Thereafter, the resource conicts that occur between neighboring BSs are negotiated through distributed signaling or in a semi-centralized manner and nally the restrictions are imposed. Here, the restrictions are introduced in such a way that the overall network utility is maximized. In [29], [30], a semi-centralized scheme was proposed to handle ICI dynamically as described above by utilizing Hungarian Algorithm [34] for the pre-allocation phase. A general picture of the aforementioned procedures is illustrated in Fig. 9. Following the process described above, the individual requests for channel restrictions are conveyed to a central unit by all the affected BSs and the central unit applies the restrictions to optimize the systems performance. Using similar concept, in [31], the utility matrix optimization is solved via binary integer programming technique
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Fig. 11.
Interference Graph Construction example
Fig. 10.
Graph-based framework-categorization
instead of Hungarian algorithm. Here, adjacent BSs are classied into interferer groups where resource preferences and allocations are optimized in the radio network controller for each group. This scheme provides an enhancement over [30] by targeting a near-optimal solution; however this is achieved at the cost of increased complexity. The semi-centralized control as adopted in the previous approaches may not be fully scalable as the number of the affected BSs increases. Therefore, in such cases a distributed solution can be advantageous even if the signaling exchange between the incorporating BSs rises. An example of distributed coordination can be seen in [32], where a decentralized version of [29], [30] is introduced for LTE systems. Here, dynamic ICIC is employed across different BSs via signaling on X2 interface rather than a centralized coordinator. In a similar manner in [33], the authors present an interesting approach that can also be classied as utility-based proposal by the adaptation of Algorithmic Game Theory [35]. Here, a distributed coordination scheme is proposed, that enables the selsh behavior of each cell by maximizing its utility function. The selsh allocation of resources that is subject to the interference constraints in each cell can be seen as a non-cooperative game [35]. In this approach by assuming a simplied cellular system and using game theory concept, the authors proved the convergence of resource allocation scheme to a Nash Equilibrium. 3) Graph-based solutions: The inter-cell interference problem in cellular networks can be addressed based on graph theory. A graph G (V, E), namely Interference Graph, consisting of V vertices connected through E edges, represents the interference relationships between nodes, denoted as users, of different cells in a multi-cell environment. This graph theoretic framework comprises a multitude of different approaches that can be further categorized based on the way Interference Graphs are initially formed and interpreted. In Fig. 10, we illustrate a schematic classication of graph theoretic solutions used in D-ICIC. Note that Graph manipulation techniques depend on the intended graph construction strategy and some manipulation categories can exclusively deal with a certain type of graph. In particular for vertex coloring the literature considers both weighted and jamming graph, whereas for the edge coloring only jamming graphs are employed. On the other hand graph partitioning strategy is only used with weighted interference graphs.
a) Graph Construction: Graph Theory can be seen as an interesting solution to the channel assignment problem in wireless cellular networks [36]. As can be seen in Fig. 11, an interference graph G (V, E) is composed by UEs which are denoted as nodes or vertices (V ) of a graph. Furthermore, the edges (E) correspond to the interference constraints between UEs as observed in the BSs. Here, the connection between two edges does not imply the actual interference caused between them, but is the result of the downlink interference caused to both of them by their mutual interfering BSs if they utilize the same resource. We dene two sub-categories of interference graphs. The rst class is called Jamming or Conict Graphs G (V, E) [37], where the edges(E) show the critical interference between two nodes. When conicts do not occur between two nodes, there is no connection between them, as the edges show only critical interference relations. In the second class, Weighted Graphs [38] are constructed based on their potential interference condition. Here, the nodes are the users that belong to all adjacent BSs and the edges are weighted with a cost representing their corresponding interference relationship. The higher the weight of the edges the stronger would be the interference between two connected nodes. b) Graph Manipulation: Here the classication concerns the method used to manipulate the graphs. As can be seen in Fig. 11, we can further classify graph-based schemes to Graph-coloring and Graph-Partitioning methods, considering the way the interference graphs are interpreted. At rst, we present the Graph Coloring category that is widely used in interference coordination and can be further divided into the following sub-categories:
Vertex Graph Coloring: In this channel assignment policy, nodes are labeled with a color corresponding to a specic channel. In this category, vertex coloring can be performed to different types of graphs as mentioned in II.C.3.a. In Jamming graphs, graph coloring targets the maximization of total throughput. The objective here is to nd the minimum number of colors required (channels) to label the nodes provided that two interfering nodes should not use the same color. Fig. 12 shows a graphical representation of this class for a simple scenario of a cluster of 3 BSs and 5 interacting nodes. In Jamming Graphs, there is edge connection between only two users that both suffer from high interference in downlink belonging to neighboring cells in close distance to each other ([37], [39]).
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Fig. 12. Graphs
Graph Construction and Vertex Coloring example for Jamming Fig. 13. Graphs Graph Construction and Vertex Coloring example for Weighted
In case two nodes have the same color, this implies that they utilize the same frequency band. Graph coloring solves this issue by assigning different colors to highly interfering nodes. In [40], [41] ICI-aware resource allocation problem was mapped to graph coloring problem using a mathematical graph-based framework and considering bi-directional interference graphs. The objective in these works is to maximize systems total throughput by assigning the optimal number of colors to users from a color list. Generally, each BS at rst calculates the total amount of interference that UEs face by other cells using SINR and path loss measurements. Thereafter, the BS blocks the largest interferers by establishing connection edges between them and applies graph coloring algorithms to solve this problem optimally. Here, UEs of the same cell are not eligible to connect as OFDM is assumed to handle intra-cell interference by orthogonalization. On the other hand, in weighted graphs ([42], [43]), as can be seen in Fig. 13, all the nodes are connected via weighted edges. The weights show the interference condition, allowing the BSs to allocate more than one sub-band per UE. In this category of schemes the objective is the maximization of systems total throughput by minimizing the sum weights that show the level of inter-cell interference [42]. Here, the difference from the previous category is that the number of colors is pre-dened and hence our problem is to allocate optimally the pre-dened colors (channels) to the nodes (UEs). Edge Graph Coloring: In this category, labeling of the edges denes the assignment problem. The objective of this problem is to minimize the number of colors so as no vertex can use two edges with the same color [44][45]. The literature ndings in this category are relatively less and focus more towards the TDMA-OFDM wireless networks [46]. Here, the edge graph-coloring problem can efciently mitigate interference conicts in different timeslots through Bi-partite graphs [44]. One extension of the edge-coloring problem was proposed in [47] to cope with the issue of having many non-utilized sub-channels per cell. In addition to the traditional edge coloring problem dened above, a node can share a color (channel) with up to k adjacent nodes. Thus, the proposal namely Generalized Edge Coloring [47] allows each vertex to use up to k edges with the same color in order to increase the spectrum utilization per cell.
The graph coloring solution framework discussed in the aforementioned categories deals with multi-cell channel allocation in a dynamic manner. However, this solution framework is still NP-hard in terms of complexity and remains a burden for practical implementations ([48], [49]). In case of multi-cell Scheduling most proposals are based on algorithms derived by Combinatorial Optimization Theory [50] to provide solutions to mitigate ICI through Interference Graphs. In that sense, some popular heuristic (D-Satur) [51] and meta-heuristic algorithms (Tabu search) [52] can be seen as potential nearoptimal solutions to lower the computational complexity of graph-based D-ICIC. Another interesting Graph manipulation class is the Graph Partitioning. The literature ndings in this category are limited [38]. However, the numerical results in [38] highlight the importance of this class of D-ICIC. The concept of this class is based on the partitioning of users (nodes) into sets (clusters) throughout the network. The users in each cluster belong to different cells and should ideally have low interference between them. At the next stage, each cluster can act as a super-user representing the enclosed users. Therefore, the channel allocation problem transforms into a resource allocation problem between clusters instead of users. Accordingly, the objective here is the maximization of the sum intra-cluster capacity subject to user QoS requirements. In [38], a nearoptimal heuristic algorithm was implemented to deal with the graph-partitioning problem that can be seen as a Maxk-cut problem [53]. Here, the graph is partitioned into K cuts in a way that no cut is smaller in size than any other cuts. Each cut results in a cluster of users and the objective is to provide K clusters with equally low intra-cluster sum weights, i.e. interference. Therefore, the partitioning of the graph into clusters with almost equal sum-weights leads to a fair allocation of resources to super-users. Table III provides a qualitative comparison of different D-ICIC approaches focusing on three efciency measures to evaluate different interference mitigation techniques, i.e. Spectrum Utilization, Cell-edge Performance and Signaling Overhead. The comparison is between Utility based schemes and the three sub-categories of Graph-based schemes. The utility-based proposals can potentially provide high Spectral Efciency and Spectrum Utilization in comparison to graph-based schemes. Graph-partitioning also provides high spectrum utilization by targeting full reuse of resources per cell. However, graph-coloring schemes provide lower spectrum utilization to maintain better interference isolation
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TABLE III DYNAMIC ICIC SCHEMES
Fig. 14.
CoMP Example
between BSs. Weighted graph-coloring partially compensates this at the cost of lower level of interference isolation. On the other hand, Cell edge performance shows how efciently inter-cell interference is mitigated, reecting the satisfaction level of highly-interfered users following the application of the scheme. In utility-based proposals this is highly dependent on the fairness level of the Intra-cell scheduling policy and the corresponding utility function. However, the restriction-oriented policies in such schemes partially favor users with good channel quality to optimize the network utility. In graph-based schemes, on the other hand, the allocation of a channel relies on user-to-user interference condition. This implies that interference avoidance reecting cell-edge performance has highest priority there. As discussed above, jamming graph-coloring provides better inter-cell interference isolation than weighted graph-coloring and partitioning at the cost of low spectral efciency. Last but not least, the Overhead in terms of signaling is of major importance in dynamic ICIC methods. Here, the efciency of the aforementioned classes is highly dependent to the environment. Utility-based schemes are implemented in semi-centralized or distributed manner. Therefore, signaling exchange between BSs (via X2 interface) and the central entity (that acts as coordinator) can lead to signaling overhead that is highly affected by the number of coordinated BSs. As the number of coordinated BSs increases, the signaling exchange between BSs and BS-central entity increases too. On the other hand, the majority of graph-based schemes are centralized meaning that the centralized coordinator handles the construction and manipulation of the graph. Considering the graph-based sub-categories, graph-partitioning requires higher overhead due to the fact that the construction of the graph and the adaptive clustering of users require more information from the BSs. III. C OORDINATED M ULTIPOINT T RANSMISSION (COMP) F UNDAMENTALS In 3GPP Release 9 [54] a general framework of coordination between multiple BSs was dened that targets the enhancement of the cell-edge users performance by more sophisticated interference coordination methods. This general framework, namely Coordinated Multipoint Transmission (CoMP), provides solutions to boost cell-edge performance while keeping the imposed systems complexity at minimum.
CoMP provides a resource scheduling strategy that relies on MIMO capabilities in emerging wireless cellular technologies. It is noteworthy to mention that Soft (Inter-site) and Softer (Intra-site) handoff process in the context of CDMA technology [55] can be considered as an early application of CoMP for handoff procedure. However, the research in Distributed Antenna Systems [56] and Group Cell Theory [57] led to the foundation of CoMP for emerging wireless communication systems. CoMP is a general framework of coordination and cooperation techniques targeting MIMO-OFDM systems. This framework is compliant with the technologies introduced in literature as Virtual or Network MIMO [58] for BS cooperation. A. Principle In general, a cell-edge user can be capable of receiving or transmitting from or to different cell sites. According to the principles of CoMP [54] if the transmitted signals from different cells is coordinated, it can substantially increase users performance in the system. The rationale is to apply coordination between the transmissions from adjacent cells to achieve enhanced system capacity and improved cell-edge data rates. From the BS-to-BS cooperation perspective, CoMP primarily can be categorized as Inter-Site or Intra-Site. Intra-site CoMP enables the coordination between sectors of the same BS. The coordination is possible through multiple Antenna Units (AUs) that allow the coordination between the sectors. On the other hand, Inter-site CoMP enables the coordination between different BSs, as shown in Fig. 14. One exception in Inter-Site CoMP architecture corresponds to the scenario where there are multiple Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) in a CoMP deployment for Hotspots [54]. In that case, it is Intra-Site CoMP that behaves as Inter-BS. B. CoMP Architecture In general, CoMP architecture can be dened by the way cell sites handle interference coordination. Therefore, there has to be distinction between two different approaches, Centralized and Distributed. In Centralized Coordination [59], a central unit is responsible to handle ICI by centrally processing the feedback information from the cell sites. The Channel State Information (CSI) and data are available at the central unit where radio resource scheduling is performed and data are sent over a starlike network to the coordinated cells. In this architecture the major issue is the high backhaul overhead and the stringent
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Fig. 15.
Centralized (left) and Distributed (right) Coordination
latency requirements. A possible but expensive solution to this problem is connecting central unit and coordinated cell sites via bers [60] as can be seen in Fig. 15-left. In Distributed Coordination, the coordinated cells exchange data and Channel State Information (CSI) over a fully meshed signaling Network using X2 Interface. On top of them, there is an advanced-Gateway (a-GW) corresponding to the Mobility Management Entity and / or Service-gateway in LTE architecture. Therefore, there is a star-like feeder network denoted as S1 and an additional meshed X2 network over which BSs can communicate with each other. In this de-centralized approach [60], it is possible that one of the coordinated cells in CoMP cluster to act as master cell and the others as slaves. Master cell operates as a central scheduler that manages resource allocation and retransmissions in a coordinated manner. An example of Distributed Coordination for LTE is illustrated in Fig. 15-right. C. CoMP Sets The set of cell sites that coordinate in order to mitigate Inter-cell Interference is dened as a CoMP Set. A CoMP Set as the example shows in Fig. 15 consists of BS1, BS2 and BS3. This CoMP Set consists of the cells that are available for Coordination, however it is possible only a part of these cell sites to coordinate for a cell-edge UE. There are several proposals in 3GPP LTE that dene Cooperation Areas (CA) according to different deployment scenarios. The main three approaches are Network Centric, UE Specic and Network-centric- UE assisted [61], [62]. In Network-Centric CA, cells of a network are divided statically into clusters at the network level. CAs are dened for all UEs of the cell, based on the neighborhood of radio cells and on network planning considerations. Despite the very simple organization that Network-Centric CAs can provide, Network level clustering depends on the size of CAs. CA size has to be large in that occasion, so as to include all strongest interferers and cancel them. Large CAs, on the other hand, may increase the signaling load in uplink and UEs battery consumption. So, from a radio-interface point of view, this network level clustering is not appropriate. In UE-centric approach, CAs are dened based on the strongest interferers, from UEs point of view. Therefore, the strongest inter-cell interferers form a CA, where the size of this cluster can be modied semi-statically. Given this adaptive CA denition, CoMP consisting of BSs of the same cluster
can improve cell-edge users performance. In comparison with Network-centric approach, the UE feedback in uplink can be further optimized but concurrently the coordination for both the appropriate CA selection and the multi-cell scheduling seems a challenging task. Network-centric, UE assisted approach in Cooperation Area deployment, combines the benets of both approaches presented previously. The Network pre-denes a set of CA patterns and the selection of the suitable CA is based on the feedback information in uplink. These three categories form the fundamental CoMP clustering strategies for LTE. However, an important challenge is the choice of the optimal number of cooperative cells in a CoMP set. In [63]-[65] there are some proposals that deal with the optimal provision of CoMP cluster size in dynamic manner. In [63] a dynamic clustering algorithm was proposed to cluster BSs into CoMP sets using the instantaneous channel state information received by the UE. For every time slot, each UE chooses the BS cooperation set that jointly transmits data targeting the UEs sum-rate performance maximization. On the other hand [64], [65] deal with the problem of optimal number of BSs that should cooperate in downlink to achieve high spectral efciency gains while keeping the backhaul signaling reasonable. In these works, an extensive analysis of the optimal number of cooperation areas is presented as well as of the impact of CoMP clustering to the backhaul overhead. IV. M ULTI - CELL S CHEDULING THROUGH C O MP Coordinated Multipoint Transmission (CoMP) in downlink [5] can be classied initially into two Schemes, namely Coordinated Scheduling and/or Beam-Forming (CS/CB) and Joint Processing (JP). These downlink schemes can be seen as potential solutions to mitigate ICI in the downlink of MIMO OFDM systems. In following sub-sections, we present review of these schemes. A. Coordinated Scheduling/Beamforming (CS/CB) In general, CS/CB as the coordination part of CoMP framework can be considered as an extension of ICIC mechanisms as previously described in Fig. 2. However, CS/CB is a more sophisticated than simple ICIC schemes and is characterized as a combination of multiple joint BS coordination and DICIC schemes. CS/CB provides fast and strict coordination, but meanwhile it uses the MIMO antenna capabilities through Beamforming [66] in a coordinated manner.
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Fig. 16. forming
UE feedback and beam collision example in uncoordinated beam-
In case of beam-forming, beams of different cells might collide, as shown in Fig. 16. Therefore, neighboring cells have to predict somehow the interference that will be experienced. In CS/CB the information data are only available within the serving cell, but the decision can be made dynamically, after the coordination among cells in the CoMP set. Here, the best serving set of users are selected for the construction of the transmitter beams based on their geographical positioning. The coordinated generation of beams and more specically the beam-to-resources selection manages to reduce interference to other neighboring users, while increasing the target users signal strength. In that sense, CS/CB can be seen as a hybrid of ICIC-CoMP techniques, since it has two parts: ICIC part, in terms of sophisticated avoidance and CoMP part in terms of strict coordination. An important aspect in downlink multi-cell scheduling is the feedback reports sent by UE towards BS in the uplink. Feedback reports indicate the channel state information (CSI) based on their SINR [67]. In LTE MIMO systems, Linear Precoding [68] is used as a method to improve the performance in downlink and to decrease the signaling load between the cells. Therefore, a set of pre-dened precoding matrices is used to indicate the possible channel states in both transmitter and receiver. Thereafter, the Precoding Matrix Index (PMI), which is dened as the index to the preferred matrix within in a codebook matrix [69], is reported by UE together with Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) and MIMO Rank Indicator (RI). CQI and PMI are parameters determined by UE based on pilot measurements and UEs send in uplink the PMIs corresponding to their serving BS and of their strong interferers. Moreover RI indicates the MIMO ranking i.e. the number of data streams to be transmitted in parallel for the next transmission over the MIMO channel [70]. These parameters are transmitted in a quantized manner to BS so as to reduce signaling overhead. The CQI is calculated in UE corresponding to the reported PMI. PMI indicates the channel states of serving and strong interfering BSs as observed by the user. Moreover, RI reects the recommendation of UE on the number of data streams to be used. The Feedback sent by the UE in the uplink counts only the link between the serving cell and the UE and is crucial for the BS to capture the interference experienced by a UE for the coordinated scheduling and/or beam-forming in the downlink transmission. There are numerous proposals for LTE, LTE-A that face the problem of inter-cell beam collision and can be further categorized to Coordinated Beam-Switching (CBS-CoMP) and
Coordinated Scheduling (CS-CoMP) schemes, according to the way they handle beam collisions between neighboring cells. 1) CBS-CoMP: In CBS-CoMP, each cell determines a sequence of beams over which it continuously cycles. Proposals of this category are distinguished from each other in the way cells coordinate to select the corresponding beams. Most proposals ([69]-[74]) focus on distributed coordination between the cell sites whereas some approaches like [75] enable centralized coordination through a master scheduler. In [69], a low complexity scheme is proposed allowing the coordination of two sectors with direct communication. In this face-to-face coordination, sectors agree on the way resource allocation is handled for all possible conicting beam pairs. This algorithm though, fails to solve the ICI problem of more than two interfering sites. The authors in [71], [72] on the other hand, propose a cyclic beam switching scheme that assumes a xed beam cycled period for all cell sites. The basic idea of these proposals is to make the uctuations of interference predictable to the scheduler by examining the variability of interference for a time period when UEs are grouped by their location. UEs report to their BS service beam, the high CQI values, and their sub-band and frame indices. Based on the reports for each frame, each BS cycles through a set of preferred beams where the pattern of this cycle depends on the geographical and the QoS parameters. Consequently, the coordination of BSs is required only in the frame synchronization in the time domain and the decision of a common cycle period. In the same philosophy, in [73], an autonomous beam coordination scheme is proposed that targets predicting interference uctuations by BSs through beam coordination in frequency domain. The cooperating BSs, using feedback information by UEs, allocate beams-to-resources autonomously for a group of users in dynamic manner. For the inter-site interference mitigation, each cell maps the possible gains that it could achieve by changing its allocation using the corresponding probability of a change to occur. Furthermore, another important category of downlink scheduling schemes that can be applied to CBS-CoMP is the application of a modied multi-cell Opportunistic Beamforming that enables the coordination between cells to mitigate inter-cell interference. Opportunistic Beam-forming (OB) in principle ([76]-[78]) is used to achieve multi-user diversity among users. The rationale behind traditional OB is the random selection of a beam out of a pre-dened set of beam patterns for the transmission of training sequence to UEs by BS. Thereafter, UEs measure and send their SNR for the corresponding beam back and the BS schedules the user with the highest SNR (or using another scheduling policy). Here, as shown in [74] if OB is combined with multi-cell coordination for the beam-to-user selection can provide an interesting multischeduling strategy; however literature in this area is still narrow. In [74], such coordination is presented for MIMO systems. Initially, the cells collect SINR measurements by users and generate the pilot beams through a pre-dened algorithm that assigns the resources to users in the Proportional Fair (PF) scheduling policy. Moreover, in this algorithm neighboring
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cells coordinate to optimally allocate beams-to-resources in order to mitigate inter-cell interference. In [73], the existence of a centralized scheduler is possible that coordinates the cells. However, this algorithm can be seen as semi-centralized as the decision of resources assignment is made in each cell. In [75], a centralized method namely Collision Avoidance Beam-forming (CA-BF) is proposed to handle inter-cell interference for LTE-A. The key feature of this scheme is a Master Scheduler, which can be located within a BS. This BS schedules jointly multiple cells in a centralized manner. UEs, based on their feedback reports are divided in two classes, namely Collision Avoidance (CA) or Non-CA. CA-UEs face high interference and assumed to be cell-edge users. On the other hand, Non-CA UEs face lower interference. As can be summarized below, CA-BF algorithm can be divided into two sub-parts, UE-BS and Master Scheduler part. UE-BS Non-CA UEs send the feedback consisting of the preferred PMI and the CQI. The CA group provides to the serving cell its preferred PMI, the least interfering PMIs of neighbor cells and multiple versions of CQI corresponding to different interference scenarios. The versions of the CQIs involve the least interference beam indices of neighboring cell. Master Scheduler For all the combinations of beams, the master scheduler picks the highest priority serving sets of UEs for each cell. The sum capacity is calculated for that set of UEs for each cell and each combination. The beams are allocated to each set with the highest sum capacity. 2) CS-CoMP: The other main category of downlink CoMP is Coordinated Scheduling, which enables the collaboration of multiple BSs to mitigate ICI. The most popular CS-CoMP schemes enable the Coordination of multi-cell Precoding Matrix Index (PMI) [79]-[81] between cooperating BSs, where the absence of a centralized scheduler is possible. Multi-cell PMI coordination differs from CBS-CoMP schemes in the way the cells handle the coordination of preferred UEs PMIs. This is accomplished by recommending a set of PMIs to the other cells of the CoMP set rather than restricting the use of beamsto-resources as in the case of CBS-CoMP. There are two different strategies of PMI coordination as dened in [79] based on how feedback PMI sets are selected by BSs Good-PMI feedback that is chosen when cell-edge UEs report a set of least-interfering PMIs to the BS. Bad-PMI feedback that allows a cell to mitigate ICI by restricting strongly interfering PMIs. In this case, BS does not require adding more scheduling restrictions to its neighbor BSs. Fig. 17 illustrates a generic representation of the steps that show how PMI coordination works in a simplied case of 2 BSs and 2 cell-edge UEs. These steps are explicitly described in [81]: 1) The UE sends the feedback information based on the collaborating BSs reference signals. This feedback con-
Fig. 17.
PMI Coordination example
sists of the reference PMIs for the interfering BSs. Moreover, it includes the recommended PMI set (bad or good) as dened previously and the expected CQI improvements in case the recommended PMIs are used. 2) The BSs exchange signaling information that indicates the PMI restrictions or preferences. 3) Each BS decides the precoding vectors and matrices for the UE it serves. 4) Each BS transmits data to the UE in downlink. These steps provide a general picture of the PMI coordination process as proposed for LTE-A. However, there can be further modications in the way that different cell sites cooperate to mitigate interference. An interesting approach proposed in [80] provides a hybrid algorithm that combines PMI Coordination and ICIC mechanisms, allowing CoMP to be compatible with previous Interference Coordination schemes such as FFR. The concept of this approach [80] indicates that each cell can have two different roles: as a master cell for sub-bands that are used by cell-edge users or as a slave cell for frequency bands of cell-center users. Master cells make the PMI recommendation requests to the neighbor interferers and the slaves try to follow these requests for each sub-band. This method mitigates inter-cell interference by protecting the cell-edge UEs. Nevertheless, the freedom of cell-center users is sacriced, by setting PMI restrictions only to them. The advantage of this proposal is the low complexity in signaling between cells, but the problem of having more cell-edge UEs than cell-center was not investigated fully. B. Joint Processing (JP) Joint Processing (JP) ([54], [59], [82]), can be seen as an advanced downlink CoMP technique that is mainly investigated to achieve spectral efciency requirements for LTE-A. In JP, a CoMP set consists of a number of cell-sites that coordinate to optimize the cell-edge performance by jointly processing cell-edge users data as a unique entity. Generally, JP as a terminology found in literature can be easily misinterpreted with Joint Transmission (JT) mainly because JP/JT is the most common JP-CoMP scheme. However, the term JP provides a more general framework that comprises two key elements. 1) Processing: The basic categorization of the JP-CoMP schemes reects to the way data for a cell-edge UE can be processed before transmission. By default, the UEs data can be available in all BSs of the CoMP set. But there are two options for this data storage before transmission [83]. In the rst option, the users data are stored in all transmission points and master cell forwards all the scheduling information via X2 interface to the slave cells. The second option is that the master cell has all the data where the scheduling
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decision is available. Thereafter master cell forwards the entire transport blocks via X2 to the other cells of the cluster. Another categorization of JP-CoMP schemes that corresponds to the implementation standards for MIMO-OFDM systems, i.e. for open-loop or closed-loop MIMO, distinguishes JP-CoMP in two types as discussed in [54], [84][86].Briey, in Closed Loop Coherent- JP (Co-JP): The CSI Feedback consists of per sub-band PMI, CQI and wideband RI. Multi-cell Precoding Cooperation is performed between cells, thus providing virtually a unique pre-coder for all transmission points of the CoMP Set. The cells jointly process the PMI-to-resources allocation, based on the preferred UEs PMIs. The data transmitted in downlink are coherently combined at the receiver in case Joint Transmission (JT) is used. In Open Loop Non-Coherent JP (NCo-JP) The CSI Feedback from UE consists of per sub-band CQI and the wideband RI. Single-cell Precoding is used autonomously by each site and only CQI information is exchanged between the cells. The transmitted data in downlink are non-coherently combined at the receiver when JT is used. The preferable implementation in downlink of LTE-A is the closed-loop MIMO [87]. This solution provides theoretically a high gain over open-loop as compared in [88]. The main drawback of the closed-loop MIMO is the high signaling overhead and transmission sensitivity to UEs movement and timing mismatch [84]. On the other hand the open-loop MIMO can be used to reduce the signaling overhead by applying sophisticated methods Space Time / Frequency block coded (STBC/SFBC) schemes [89][90] which are used to maximize transmit diversity to cell-edge users. Finally, a cooperation technique proposed in [85] is Semiclosed loop that enables the open-loop cooperation between the cells in backhaul and closed-loop Co-JP in the links between the cells and the UEs in downlink. This is a good compromise that can lower the signaling overhead in CoMP clusters while it benets from the multi-cell diversity and the closed loop gains. 2) Transmission: In JP-CoMP, as described above, data can be available throughout the CoMP clusters. However there are two possible ways that data are transmitted to UEs. Joint Transmission (JT) [82] is used as a method to enable multiple transmissions of the same data by the coordinating cells. The authors in [76] propose a centralized JP/JT approach, implemented for LTE-A in which three coordinated sectors are assumed with a master-slave hierarchy. Master sector acts as a centralized controller in a closed-loop MIMO Co-JP. The scheduling information is distributed via the X2 interface to all the transmission points that are dened as cells that actively transmit the physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) to the users [5]. A second category of JP transmission is Dynamic Cell Selection (DCS) [82], [91]. In JP / DCS multiple users which are located at the cell-edge have the opportunity to reselect serving cell through the best measured SINRs or the least
Fig. 18. JP/JT (up) and JP/ DCS (down) deployments in Inter-BS LTE architecture
path loss. Therefore, the cell-edge UE selects the best link for the next frame. For this frame period other cooperating cells are muted for the resources this UE uses. The authors in [91] proposed an enhanced DCS algorithm with improved performance that enables an adaptive muting mode selection and power control. Fig. 18 represents these two transmission schemes to identify the difference between JP/JT and JP/DCS without taking account the master/slave hierarchy in a CoMP set. In JP/DCS the data is available to all cooperating BSs, but the UE selects dynamically the best serving BS by the path loss measurements. Then, the new serving BS noties via X2 signaling the other BSs of the CoMP set to mute them for the resources that this UE is going to use. C. Downlink CoMP Challenges-Issues Downlink CoMP schemes as presented in previous sections, manage to mitigate efciently ICI at the cell-edges. Furthermore, they can provide better coverage of high data rates and cell-edge throughput. These benets of CoMP can be further enhanced when Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) [87] is applied. MU-MIMO allows the communication between a multi-antenna BS and multiple users by allocating different data streams to different users. In both CB/CS and JP, if MUMIMO is used in the downlink instead of Single User-MIMO (SU-MIMO), systems throughput can be further enhanced. This enhancement is clearer for higher order MIMO schemes, as the BSs transmit antennas in downlink can serve multiple UEs congured in MU-MIMO transmission mode. The major issue in case JP-CoMP is used along with MUMIMO, is the complexity and cost of both user handsets and BSs. Moreover, another issue is the increased signaling overhead between the BSs which make the high capacity backhaul network crucial. As discussed above, the CS/CB CoMP downlink schemes are simpler, mainly because the amount of signaling overhead is kept low, as they do not require full CSI information at the transmitter. On the other hand, JP-CoMP provides a more sophisticated solution with much better results but in practice it can be very complex for the BS coordination. A practical implementation that was proposed for LTE-A [92] and combine both of these types of schemes can be shown in Fig. 19. JP-CoMP can be used in Intra-BS solution between coordinated sectors in a centralized manner. On the other hand, CS/CB-CoMP is used for the Inter-Site Coordination
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increase the capacity and coverage via spectrum re-use. In this context, the management of interference is challenging due to the density and unplanned nature of such small cells [97]-[99]. Therefore, besides improving and extending stateof-the-art algorithms for such scenarios, incorporating CoMP and optimizing the backhaul signaling of CoMP solutions are crucial for future studies towards more applicable solutions for small cells.
VI. S UMMARY Multi-cell scheduling for emerging wireless systems is a term closely coupled to the interference management. The ICIC and CoMP mechanisms which examined in this survey provide a general framework of solutions that can handle efciently inter-cell interference as one of the major issues in the wireless networks. The ICIC mechanisms were thoroughly investigated and categorized based on a variety of key features. As discussed, the static and semi-static solutions have the key advantage of lower complexity. However, the static ICIC schemes are not as exible as semi-static or dynamic categories to adapt to the trafc variations. Nevertheless, static SFR and PFR can be seen as the building blocks for more complex solutions. In this direction, semi-static algorithms presented are more efcient variants as they can better balance the spectrum utilization between cell-edge and cell-center users. On the other hand, dynamic ICIC schemes can potentially provide near optimal solutions at the cost of high complexity. Nevertheless, by employing simplications and more heuristic solutions, they potentially become more feasible for practical systems. In this survey, we presented two popular D-ICIC classes of schemes, i.e. Utility-based and Graph-based that could be possible candidates for multi-cell scheduling in emerging cellular networks. Finally, CoMP was further explored as a complementary scheme for ICIC methods by characterizing their partially common features. As described, CoMP provides an advanced coordination framework suitable for high order MIMO-OFDM systems like LTE-Advanced. However, corresponding challenges for practical implementations should be carefully considered. Here, two different categories of CoMP solutions were discussed, classied as Coordination (CS/CB) and Cooperation (JP). As mentioned, CS/CB is a simpler and more practical solution than JP as it requires lower backhaul overhead. However, joint data processing if followed by joint transmission can be seen as an advanced mechanism that can mark a new epoch in emerging wireless technologies like LTEA.
Fig. 19. A possible CoMP scheme for Intra-BS and Inter-BS implementations in LTE-A
between BSs in a distributed or semi-centralized way with a master/slave hierarchy via X2 as shown previously. In this implementation, the authors take advantage of the benets of both schemes, while keeping signaling overhead low. V. O PEN R ESEARCH D IRECTIONS In this paper, we explored Multi-cell Scheduling in terms of Interference Coordination and Cooperation as a walkthrough from simple interference avoidance schemes (static, semistatic) used in early LTE system towards dynamic coordination, CoMP and in particular Joint Processing as an advanced cooperation strategy envisioned for LTE-A systems. However, there are several challenges and open research areas to be investigated in future, such as: Adaptive CoMP Clustering: As described above, a key challenge in downlink CoMP implementations, especially in JP/T, is the high backhaul effort required for the BS cooperation. This issue can be seen as a burden towards the implementation of CoMP in LTE, LTE-A systems. Therefore, an open research direction is the implementation of adaptive dynamic CoMP clustering that can potentially impact the efciency of CoMP schemes as detailed in III.C. In this direction, an interesting solution could be the employment of self-organization concept. More details on this direction can be found in [93], where the authors propose a self-organized clustering algorithm to dynamically adjust the CoMP Sets in a distributed manner. Energy-Efcient CoMP: The coordination and cooperation of multiple BSs through CoMP poses another key issue that concerns the energy efciency perspective as can be seen in [94] and [95]. From this point of view this can be seen a future research direction of major impact towards the energy saving through green cellular operation. CoMP for Small Cells: Deploying HetNets in emerging wireless cellular systems can be seen as a new challenge from interference management perspective. In such networks, clusters of femtocells [96] and relay BSs might be included underneath the macro-cell traditional architecture to locally
ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work has been performed in the framework of the ICT project ICT-4-248523 BeFEMTO, which is partly funded by the European Union. The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of their colleagues from the BeFEMTO consortium.
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Atta ul Quddus received the B-Eng degree in Computer Engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan in 1999. He received the MSc degree in Satellite Communications Engineering and PhD degree in Mobile Communications from University of Surrey, UK in 2000 and 2005, respectively. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR). His research interests include Channel Coding, Radio Resource Management, Self-Organising Radio Networks and simulation of Communication Systems.
Emmanouil Pateromichelakis received his B-Eng degree in Information and Communication Systems Engineering from University of the Aegean, Greece, in 2008, and M.Sc. in Mobile Communications at the University of Surrey in 2009. He is currently studying towards a Ph.D. degree in the Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR) at the University of Surrey, UK. Since 2010 he has been actively involved in the Broadband evolved FEMTO (BeFEMTO) european project. His main research interests include Multi-cell scheduling and Inter-cell Interference Management in Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets).
Rahim Tafazolli is a professor of mobile/personal communications and the Director of Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR), University of Surrey, United Kingdom. He has been active in research for more than 25years and has authored or co-authored more than 500 papers in refereed international journals and conferences. He is a consultant to many telecommunication companies. Prof. Tafazolli is a Fellow of the Wireless World Research Forum. He has lectured, chaired, and has been invited as keynote speaker to a number of Institution of Engineering and Technology and IEEE workshops and conferences. He is the Chairman of the European Union Expert Group of NetWorks Technology Platform.
Mehrdad Shariat received the BSc degree in Communications Engineering from Iran University of Science and Technology, Iran in 2005. He received his PhD degree in Mobile Communications from University of Surrey, UK in 2010 and since then has been working as a full-time research fellow in Centre for Communication Systems Research (CCSR), UK. His research interests include Radio Resource Management, Interference Management and Scheduling for OFDMA Cellular/ Multihop Networks.

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IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIALS, VOL. 15, NO.

2, SECOND QUARTER 2013

On the Evolution of Multi-Cell Scheduling in 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

Downlink Interference in a multi-cell environment

1553-877X/13/$31.00 c 2013 IEEE

Interference Coordination and Cooperation Overview

PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

Partial Frequency Reuse Fig. 4. Soft Frequency Reuse N=3

Alcatel Proposal TABLE I S TATIC ICIC SCHEMES

CCA N N edge N 100% ~ 15%

CEA N edge N 33% ~ 85%

PFR [12,13] SFR [14,15] Alcatel [16,17]

*CCA = Cell Centre Area, *CEA = Cell Edge Area

PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

TABLE II S EMI -S TATIC ICIC SCHEMES

Semi-static ICIC Proposal

Fig. 9. Fig. 8. Adaptive FFR modes

Utility-based D-ICIC proposal

PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

Interference Graph Construction example

Fig. 12. Graphs

PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

TABLE III DYNAMIC ICIC SCHEMES

Centralized (left) and Distributed (right) Coordination

PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

Fig. 16. forming

UE feedback and beam collision example in uncoordinated beam-

PMI Coordination example

PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

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PATEROMICHELAKIS et al.: ON THE EVOLUTION OF MULTI-CELL SCHEDULING IN 3GPP LTE / LTE-A

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CCA = Cell Centre Area, CEA = Cell Edge Area