Interference Avoidance Techniques for Improving Ubiquitous User Experience

The main paradigm of the 3GPP LTE network is to build a cellular network in which the core network is not aware of the radio access network. This results in delegating the radio resource management, including users' scheduling and power control, to the eNB base stations. Without any cooperation between eNBs, high interference levels are experienced at the cell edge resulting in unfairness between cell-center users taking benefit from high data rates transmission schemes, and cell-edge users experiencing low signal to interference plus noise (SINR) levels. Thanks to a X2 logical cooperation channel set up between the eNBs, the cell-edge throughput is improved by using inter-cell interference coordination techniques via semi-static power profiles and multi-user scheduling. The results presented in this paper are the output of the work-package 1 of the ICT ARTIST4G European project, the goal of which is to improve the ubiquity of user experience, or in other words reduce the gap between the cell-edge and cellcenter throughputs. Three main strategies are investigated, they can be exploited altogether: Interference avoidance employs transmitter-side techniques, interference cancellation involves