Small Cell Self-Organizing Wireless Networks

Increasing the spatial reuse of frequency spectrum by deploying more access points has historically been the most effective means to improve the capacity of any cellular communication network. Todays mobile networks face a proliferation of data services and overall demand for data traffic, that has been strongly increasing over several years. As a result, increasing network capacity through the deployment of small lower power nodes is of key importance for mobile network operators. Although such small access points are conceptually equivalent to conventional cellular base stations in many ways, the expected large number of small cells as well as their much more dynamic un-planned deployment raise a variety of challenges in the area of network management. This paper discusses such challenges and reviews state of the art modeling as well as selected network management techniques. Index Terms?small cells; SON; self-optimization; closed-loop optimization; LTE; wireless network planning and optimization; mobility load balancing; capacity and coverage optimization; energy saving management; interference modeling; system modeling?