ACCEPTED FROM OPEN CALL

INTERFERENCE COORDINATION FOR OFDM-BASED MULTIHOP LTE-ADVANCED NETWORKS

KAN ZHENG, BIN FAN, JIANHUA LIU, YICHENG LIN, AND WENBO WANG, BEIJING UNIVERSITY OF POSTS & TELECOMMUNICATIONS

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ABSTRACT
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The authors present an overview of the interference coordination strategies in OFDM-based multihop cellular networks. They propose several typical static or semi-static interference coordination schemes to improve coverage and increase the cell edge data rate.

Recently there has been an upsurge of interests in the multihop infrastructures for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing-based cellular networks in both academia and industry. In this article, we first present an overview of the interference coordination strategies in OFDM-based multihop cellular networks. Then, based on the framework of third-generation LTE-Advanced networks with multihop relaying, several typical static or semi-static interference coordination schemes are proposed to improve the coverage and increase the cell edge data rate. By applying these schemes, the radio resources can be reused with certain limitations on either the frequency or time domain, or even both of them. Dynamic system-level simulations are also carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed interference coordination schemes.

INTRODUCTION
The specification of the third-generation (3G) Long-Term Evolution (LTE) radio interface was recently finished by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) [1]. It aims to provide downlink/uplink peak rates of at least 100 Mb/s/50 Mb/s and round-trip times of less than 10 ms. The first commercial LTE deployment took place in Stockholm, Sweden, and Oslo, Norway, in December 2009. However, the LTE system cannot meet the requirements of future broadband wireless networks, which is officially called International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)-Advanced by the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-R). The IMTAdvanced system is expected to support enhanced peak data rates on the order of 100 Mb/s for high-mobility and 1 Gb/s for low-mobility environments, respectively [2]. Also, it is able to provide a high degree of commonality of functionality worldwide while retaining the flexibility to support a wide range of services and applications in a cost-efficient manner. In order

to meet these new challenges, 3GPP has started to develop further advancements for 3G LTE systems, referred to as LTE-Advanced, as a candidate for IMT-Advanced. In order to meet the requirements of IMTAdvanced, more spectrum bands are needed. Besides the existing spectrum for 3G mobile communication systems, spectrum bands located at 450470 MHz, 698790 MHz, 2.32.4 GHz, and 3.43.6 GHz have also been identified for 3G and IMT-Advanced systems by the ITU during World Radio Conference 2007 (WRC 07) [3]. Most of them are above the 2 GHz band, where the radio propagation is more vulnerable to non-favorable channel conditions. With traditional cellular architectures, the density of base stations (BSs) has to be significantly increased to meet service coverage requirements, offering high data rates at these high-frequency bands. Obviously, this is not a favorable method since it would greatly increase deployment costs. Instead, a cost-effective solution would be the multihop cellular architecture with relaying, which shortens the transmission distance and increases the amount of users under good channel conditions, thus allowing for higher throughput. Recently, standardization efforts of integrating cooperative relaying technologies into LTE-Advanced networks have commenced [4]. In LTE and LTE-Advanced networks, orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) has been chosen as the multiple access method since it can provide high data rates and spectrum efficiency. In OFDM-based systems, users are multiplexed in time and frequency by means of a scheduler that dynamically assigns subcarriers to different users at different time instances according to predefined scheduling metrics. Therefore, the OFDM-based multihop transmission by means of relay stations (RSs) has been recognized as an efficient technique to meet the requirements of future broadband wireless networks. The RSs have the capability of forwarding the traffic between the base station (BS) and the mobile stations (MSs). The main objective of introducing multihop relaying technology into

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OFDM-based cellular networks is to achieve both higher throughput and better service coverage with the assistance of cost-effective relay architecture. Preliminary study on cooperative relaying technology indicates that multihop relaying offers certain performance advantages such as coverage extension and capacity improvement [5]. However, numerous challenges at the physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layers in OFDM-based multihop cellular networks still remain [6]. For example, time and frequency resources are typically reused in multiple cells, thus leading to co-channel interference impairments among the coverage of neighboring BSs and/or RSs. Such co-channel interference between cells plays an important role in affecting the performance of OFDM-based multihop cellular networks. The impact of interference is more obvious for cell edge users, who are more susceptible due to poor channel gains with their serving BS or RS. Limited reception caused by interference at the cell edge is an issue of great importance for wireless operators who want to provide full coverage within their service areas and guarantee a prior agreed quality of service (QoS) to their subscribers. To the best of the authors knowledge, there have been few works in the literature on specific interference coordination schemes in OFDM-based multihop cellular networks. The scope of this article is hence to examine how users can share the available radio resources efficiently, in terms of bandwidth and time allocation, in order to mitigate intercell co-channel interference and thus enhance user throughput, especially for cell edge users. We first briefly introduce the state-of-the-art interference mitigation schemes in OFDM-based cellular networks. Then, with the introduction of the system framework based on 3G LTE specifications, several static or semi-static interference coordination schemes are proposed. We also analyze and discuss their performance extensively through simulations.

STATE-OF-THE-ART
In OFDM-based cellular networks, interference coordination strategies have been studied in order to increase achievable reuse of the scarce spectrum with reasonable complexity and overhead. An exhaustive exposure of the state of the art is outside the scope of this article. Interference coordination aims at applying restrictions to radio resource management in a coordinated way among cells. These restrictions can be either on the available radio resources or in the form of restrictions on the transmit power that can be applied to certain radio resources. Such restrictions provide the possibility for improvement in signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), and consequently to the cell edge throughput and coverage. Interference coordination also requires communication between different nodes in the network to (re)configure resource restrictions. Based on the requirement of the inter-BS communication interval, most of the existing and currently in development interference coordination strategies can be categorized into three types [5]:

Static coordination: Internode communication is very limited since it corresponds to the setup of restrictions only. Reconfiguration of the resource allocation restrictions among nodes is done on a timescale of days. Semi-static coordination: The corresponding signaling rate of internode communication is generally on the order of tens of seconds to minutes. Reconfiguration of the restrictions is done on a timescale of seconds or longer. Dynamic interference coordination: It requires much internode communication to exploit multiuser diversity among neighboring cells with high computational complexity. In this case, internode signaling or data transferring may be needed at each scheduling instant. In the LTE standardization process, many appealing and feasible interference coordination algorithms were extensively studied for OFDMbased networks. Typical interference coordination strategies, such as soft frequency reuse (SFR) and fractional frequency reuse (FFR), utilize the resources of frequency and radiated power to coordinate BS transmissions with predefined resource constraints for different types of users as follows: Soft frequency reuse: The whole available bandwidth is divided into multiple non-overlapping subbands. Each cell selects one subband as its major band and the others as its minor bands. Major bands can be used in the whole cell area with full transmit power while minor bands are only in the inner zone of the cell with reduced transmit power. The performance of the cell edge user (CEU) can be improved by using the major bands to mitigate intercell interference. Also, the high data rate of the cell center user (CCU) can be achieved since both major and minor bands are available for its transmission [7]. Fractional frequency reuse: It splits the given bandwidth into inner and outer subbands. The inner subbands are completely reused by all cells, while the outer subbands are divided among neighboring cells with a frequency reuse factor greater than one. Intercell interference is reduced at the cell edge by assigning resources on outer subbands to CEUs [8]. With the development of LTE-Advanced, multihop relaying techniques have been introduced into the cellular network. In a multihop cellular network, an RS usually transmits the same or a different format of the information as that received from the BS or MS, which is likely to be regarded as a certain kind of repetition. So the capacity of this relaying network is decreased from the system point of view. Therefore, it is quite necessary to design an efficient resource allocation scheme in a multihop cellular network, which turns to high radio resource reuse among RSs and BSs. However, compared with traditional cellular networks, more complicated and serious interference exists in an OFDMbased multihop cellular network. The downlink co-channel interference in such a network can be classified as: Intercell interference: The co-channel interference introduced by the frequency reuse between multiple cells; that is, interference from BS RS links, BS MS links, and RS MS links in the neighboring cells, respectively.

Interference coordination aims at applying restrictions to the radio resource management in a coordinated way among cells. These restrictions can be either on the available radio resources or in the form of restrictions on the transmit power that can be applied to certain radio resources.

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Most interference coordination schemes for OFDM-based multihop cellular networks are only the extensions of existing coordination strategies used in traditional cellular networks. The opportunities of multihop relaying transmissions in dealing with co-channel interference problems have not been fully exploited.

Intracell interference: The co-channel interference induced by resource reuse within the same cell; that is, interference from BS MS and the RS MS links in the same cell, respectively. Similar to a traditional OFDM cellular network, there are also three types of interference coordination strategies to deal with co-channel interference in OFDM-based multihop cellular networks: static, semi-static, and dynamic schemes. With static/semi-static interference coordination schemes, both inter- and intracell interference can be diminished by allocating resources under the constraint of the predefined resource coordination pattern. Also, it is critical to exploit the characteristics of multihop transmission to obtain a well-designed coordination pattern that can achieve throughput gain for all users in the cell. For dynamic coordination schemes, the power and resource allocation is dynamically coordinated among neighboring cells at each transmission time [5]. Optimal intercell resource coordination and large multiuser diversity gain can be obtained by centralized control or non-cooperative competition gaming among the cells. However, due to its huge signaling overhead and high complexity, such a dynamic scheme is not practical in current OFDM-based multihop cellular networks. As of today, most available interference coordination schemes for OFDM-based multihop cellular networks are only extensions of existing coordination strategies used in traditional cellular networks. The particularities and opportunities of multihop relaying transmissions in dealing with co-channel interference problems, however, have not been fully exploited yet.

RS is usually assumed to be deployed in LTEAdvanced networks, where the transmission and reception take place in different subframes. When multihop relaying happens, the complete two-way transmission over the air has four communication phases (i.e., BS RS, RS MS on the downlink [DL], and MS RS, RS BS on the uplink [UL]). In each phase one subframe is used for transmission; the basic transmission granularity in the time domain is one subframe, consisting of two successive time slots. Based on this framework, we present several advanced interference coordination schemes for multihop cellular networks in the next section, which can be also applied in frequency-division duplex (FDD) systems.

ADVANCED INTERFERENCE COORDINATION SCHEMES

Different from traditional cellular networks, cochannel interference occurs not only between neighboring BSs or RSs but also between nearby BSs and RSs involved in multihop transmission. In order to mitigate these interferences, suitable radio resource allocation and scheduling mechanisms in such a multihop cellular network become vital. In this section we propose several static or semi-static interference coordination schemes for downlink transmission. In general, the interference between neighboring RSs or BSs is measured when the network is initialized, or the user distribution and services slowly vary. Then, according to measurement results, the RSs that do not cause severe interference to each other are grouped together and reuse the same radio resources. The restrictions on radio resource usage for BSs and RSs can be carried on along the frequency or time domain (i.e., one-dimensional), or both of them (i.e., two-dimensional) in an OFDMbased multihop cellular network. Then, with these restrictions, each BS or RS can schedule its serving users without explicit internode communication.

FRAMEWORK OF A MULTIHOP RELAYING NETWORK

In this section we briefly introduce the underlying multihop relaying framework for downlink transmission. As depicted in Fig. 1a, there are usually three types of links involved in end-toend communication in multihop relaying cellular networks: the link from BS to RS (BS RS), the link from RS to MS (RS MS), and the link from BS to MS (BS MS). Furthermore, for the sake of clarity, we refer to the BS RS link as the relay link, while both the RS MS and BS MS links are called access links. Relaying should happen only when it can improve the end-to-end throughput. For the sake of description, the time-divisionduplex (TDD) frame structure defined in LTE is used as an example to enable relaying technology in cellular networks. As shown in Fig. 1b, each radio frame of length Tf = 10 ms consists of two half-frames with length Thalf = 5 ms each. Usually, each half-frame includes four common subframes of length Tsub = 1 ms and three special fields: downlink pilot time slot (DwPTS), uplink pilot time slot (UpPTS), and guard period (GP). Each subframe comprises two slots with length T slot = 0.5 ms. For more detailed information on this frame structure, please refer to the 3GPP specifications [1]. In practical implementation, the half-duplex

ONE-DIMENSIONAL INTERFERENCE COORDINATION SCHEMES

In order to illustrate 1D interference coordination schemes clearly, we show a typical deployment scenario in Fig. 2a, where each cell is partitioned into three sectors and a fixed RS is put on the bore sight line of the directional antenna in each sector. First, every neighboring BS or RS takes turns transmitting the reference signal while others keep silent and measure the received signals during the measurement period. The received signal power from RSi at RSj (i j) is denoted P ji. Then each RS reports the measured Pji to its anchor BS. Next, an interference measurement table is formed at the anchor BS, which can be used as the guide for RS grouping. Define the interference power threshold Pth as the maximum value of interference power an RS can tolerate with acceptable communication. The simple grouping criterion is that RS i and RSj can be selected into the same resource reuse set only when Pji < Pth. For example, the inter-

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MS Access link

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Figure 1. Illustration of the framework in a multihop cellular network: a) illustration of the different links in a multihop cellular network; b) frame structure.

ference power threshold Pth = 80 dBm is predefined in this section. According to measurement results in Fig. 2a, the nine RSs concerned are grouped into three RS reuse sets (i.e., G1 = {RS1, RS7, RS8}, G2 = {RS2, RS5, RS6}, and G3 = {RS 3 , RS 4 , RS 9 }). Note that every two sets have a null intersection (i.e., Gm Gn = , if m n). In the resource partitioning stage, all RSs in the same reuse set can be allocated to the radio resources with the same pattern. Therefore, in the remaining parts of this article, we only concentrate on resource coordination among the RSs in the different groups (e.g., RS1 G1, RS2 G2, and RS3 G3).

Frequency Domain Interference Coordination Scheme In this scheme different priorities of the radio resources for different users are defined in the frequency domain before resource allocation. At each BS or RS, the radio resources with high priority are first assigned to its remote users that experience strong interference with high probability. On these high-priority radio resources, the signals can be transmitted with full radiated power. If the data amount of the service demands exceeds the throughput the BS or RS can provide only with high-priority radio resources, other radio resources with low priority have to be allocated under the constraint of lower radiated power. In Fig. 2b we give an example of high-priority radio resource allocation for three RS groups, which is based on the measurement results in

Fig. 2a. In this frequency domain (FD) interference coordination scheme, every two successive subframes are allocated for BS and RS transmission, respectively. In the first subframe a part of radio resources along the frequency domain is orthogonally allocated to the relay links (BS RS) of the neighboring sectors. Meanwhile, since most single-hop users are usually close to the BS, they are insensitive to intercell interference. The other radio resources are shared by the single-hop transmissions between BS and MS in the neighboring sectors. The radio resources are not evenly divided among the BS RS link and the BS MS link, which is dependent on the ratio of the single-hop user number and two-hop user number. In the second subframe the RSs transmit to their serving MSs, the remote MS are first allocated high-priority radio resources, which are orthogonal to each other in the frequency domain in order to eliminate strong co-channel interference. Then, for those users near their serving RSs, low-priority radio resources can be used for transmission with lower radiated power without much performance loss. Usually, a lineof-sight (LOS) channel is assumed in the BS RS link, and a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) in the RS MS link. The quality of radio channels on the BS RS link is much better than that on the RS MS link. Hence, the higher modulation and coding scheme (MCS) for data transmission can be applied in BS RS links. Consequently, the throughput balance between the BS RS link and the RS MS link can be

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Received signal from RS RS1 RS2 RS3 RS5 RS6 RS7 RS8 RS9
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Full radiated power for the BS RS link Resources are used by its neighboring BSs for BS RS link? No Full radiated power for BS MS link.

Resource allocation RSs in different groups allocate orthogonal frequency resources to their CEUs as high-priority resources Each RS uses the remained frequency resources as its low-priority resources Power allocation Full radiated power on high-priority resources Half radiated power on low-priority resources

Figure 2. Illustration of 1D interference coordination schemes in OFDM-based multihop cellular networks: a) deployment of one RS per sector; b) resource allocation by the frequency domain IC scheme; c) resource allocation by the time domain IC scheme; d) flowchart of the frequency domain IC scheme; e) flowchart of the time domain IC scheme.

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Coordination in the second frame Power coordination Reduce the radiated power of the BS in the subframes for BS MS link. Use beamforming in the BS RS link (optional)

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achieved with the suitable design. Figure 2d gives the flowchart of the FD interference coordination scheme.

Time-Domain Interference Coordination Scheme Multihop relaying transmissions in the downlink usually consist of two phases in sequence (i.e., first from BS to RS and then from RS to MS). Considering this characteristic, the subframes allocated to different transmission phases can be coordinated among cells in the time domain. According to the channel path loss model defined in [9], the strongest interference to the remote users served by an RS mostly comes from their neighboring RSs. Thus, it is advisable to ensure that the resources for RS MS links of the neighboring cells are kept orthogonal in the time domain to mitigate the interference. The time domain interference coordination scheme is proposed and described as follows. In the time domain, different subframes can be used by one of three types of links (i.e., BS MS, BS RS, and RS MS). Figure 2c shows an example of resource allocation pattern for three neighboring sectors, where BS MS represents the single-hop link from BS to MS; BS RSi, i {1, 2, 3}, is the relay link of the twohop transmission; and the access link of the twohop transmission is denoted RSi MS, i {1, 2, 3}. Different subframes are allocated to different types of links within one sector, while those of the same type of links among the neighboring sector are not overlapped in the time domain. Thus, every three successive subframes are used together as a unit for the coordination among these three links by the time domain interference coordination scheme. The flowchart of the time domain interference coordination scheme is also shown in Fig. 2e. By this allocation method, the interference from neighboring BSs becomes the dominant factor, affecting the performance of RS MS links in the anchor cell. To overcome this problem, beamforming can be applied at the BSs for transmission of the relay link, which concentrates the transmit power in the direction of a particular user and minimizes the interference from BS RS links in the neighboring cell to RS MS links in the anchor cell. Furthermore, a neighboring BS can reduce its transmit power in BS MS links for single-hop users located in the cell center, thus also mitigating the interference to RS MS links in the anchor cell. Meanwhile, the interference on other links such as BS MS and BS RS can also be decreased. In addition, the ratio of radio resources between single- and two-hop links can be varied with the distribution of different types of users. Performance Comparison The simulations are carried out to demonstrate the performances of the priority-based interference coordination (IC) schemes. Most simulation assumptions follow the evaluation methodology as in [9, 10] and are summarized in Table 1. The scenario with intersite distance (ISD) of 1500 m is considered, where the operating bandwidth of 10 MHz is located at the central frequency of 2 GHz for downlink transmission. A penetration loss of 10 dB is assumed for the access links (i.e., BS

MS and RS MS). For simplicity, only a singleantenna configuration is assumed for each node. Statistics are collected from a total of 20 drops in the simulations. In each drop, users are uniformly distributed around each BS with a density of 90 users/cell. The simulation time span is 50 s (1000 radio frames) in each drop. The ideal hexagonal cell is assumed for each BS, and two tiers of cells are considered with respect to one reference cell in the center (i.e., a total of 19 hexagonal cells). Moreover, each cell is partitioned into three 120 sectors, where one 120 directional antenna for each sector is applied at the BS. For each sector, only one RS is deployed on the bore sight line of the directional antenna of the BS. The distance between the RS and its anchor BS is two thirds of the cell radius. According to the received SINR, all users can be classified into two types: CEU and CCU. The ratio between the number of CEUs and CCUs in each cell is set to be 1:2. If the frequency domain (FD) IC scheme is applied, the signal is transmitted on the high-priority resources with full radiated power, while only half of the full radiated power is allowed on the low-priority ones. With the time domain (TD) IC scheme, the radiated power ratio between each BS and RS in the networks is set to be 2:1 for fair comparison. We also provide the performance of the network without the IC scheme for comparison. The full-buffer traffic model is first assumed for simulations, in which there are infinite data packets in the queues. Figure 3a shows the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the received SINR per cell in the network with/without 1D IC schemes. Since the interference power to the high-priority resources used by the CEUs is decreased by using the FD IC scheme, the SINR performance of CEUs can be improved. However, for the CCUs in the network with the FD IC scheme, the corresponding SINR values are decreased because the radiated power on the low-priority resources is reduced. Moreover, it can be seen that the SINR values of all users in the network with the FD IC scheme are limited to be no more than 16 dB. This is because the performance of the two-hop users is restricted by the quality of the relay link (BS RS), whose SINR is no larger than 16 dB due to the intersector interference. Different from the FD IC scheme, the SINR performance is apparently improved for all users including CEUs and CCUs by using the TD IC scheme. Meanwhile, parts of interference to the relay link (BS RS) come from the neighboring RSs with lower radiated power instead of the BSs by using the TD IC scheme. Therefore, the highest SINR value of the two-hop users, restricted by the relay link, is increased to around 18 dB. The comparison of per user throughput performance in the networks with/without 1D IC schemes is also given in Fig. 3b. Similar to the SINR performance, the FD IC scheme can achieve significant throughput improvement for the CEUs with little performance degradation of the CCUs. In the network with the TD IC scheme, the throughput is increased for both CEUs and CCUs. Furthermore, the aggregated cell throughput of the networks without or with 1D interference coordination schemes is given in Fig. 3c. Com-

Multihop relaying transmissions in the downlink usually consist of two phases in sequence (first from BS to RS and then from RS to MS). Considering this characteristic, the subframes allocated to different transmission phases can be coordinated among cells in the time domain.

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Parameters Intersite distance (ISD) Bandwidth/carrier frequency Antenna configuration (BS/RS/MS) BS-MS Pathloss BS-RS LOS/NLOS RS-MS LOS/NLOS Transmit power/height BS RS Penetration loss Thermal noise spectral density Noise figure Traffic model 1500 m

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IC scheme, with 7.5 and 15.1 percent relative gain with the FD IC and TD IC scheme, respectively.

10 MHz/2 GHz 1/1/1 128.1 + 37.6 log10(R) Type D LOS in [9]/128.1 + 37.6 log10(R), R in km Type C/Type A in [9] 46 dBm/32 m 37 dBm/12.5 m 10 dB 174 dBm/Hz 5 dB Full buffer

TWO-DIMENSIONAL INTERFERENCE COORDINATION SCHEMES

For network deployment with more than one RS per sector, the coordination scheme operating solely in the FD degrades the potential frequency diversity gain, while either too small time granularity or a group with too many subframes is needed for the scheme operating only in the TD. It is therefore necessary to develop a 2D time-frequency interference coordination scheme with more flexibility for an OFDM-based multihop cellular network. Assume that there are two RSs deployed per sector as shown in Fig. 4a. According to the interference measurement results, all RSs are grouped into the following six sets (i.e., G1 = {RS 1, RS 15, RS 17}, G 2 = {RS 2, RS 16, RS 18}, G 3 = {RS 3, RS 12, RS 14}, G4 = {RS 4, RS 11, RS 13}, G5 = {RS5, RS8, RS9}, G6 = {RS6, RS7, RS10}). Recall that the RSs in the same set can reuse the same radio resources. The intersector cochannel interference can be mitigated by means of the TD coordination scheme, while the intrasector interference is dealt with by the FD coordination scheme. In Fig. 4b, for TD resource allocation, all RSs in six sets can also be combined into three pairs: P 1 = {RS 1 , RS 2 }, P 2 = {RS3, RS4}, and P3 = {RS5, RS6}. Then different kinds of links including RS MS, BS RS, and BS MS in each paired RS set are distinguished in the TD within one sector. Moreover, the same kind of links between the neighboring sectors are allocated to different subframes without overlap in the TD. Then further radio resource allocation within one sector among different RS sets is performed in the FD. The total frequency bandwidth for each RS set is partitioned into two orthogonal bands,high-priority and low-priority. The highpriority bands of two different RS sets in the same sector are orthogonal. For each RS, it is necessary to first allocate the radio resources in the high-priority band to the remote MSs with full radiated power, while those in the low-priority band with lower radiated power can be used by the MSs that are close to the RS. In this way the intrasector co-channel interference, which comes from the different reuse sets, can be decreased efficiently. Also, we show the flowchart of the proposed 2D interference coordination scheme in Fig. 4c. Note that this scheme can be extended to cases with larger numbers of RSs.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Table 1. Parameter assumptions in a multihop cellular network. pared to the network without the IC scheme, a large throughput gain for the CEUs (i.e., 15.9 percent) can be obtained with the FD IC scheme. However, it decreases the aggregated cell throughput of the CCUs. On the other hand, the TD IC scheme can improve the throughput performance of both CEUs and CCUs, with more than 18.3 and 15.6 percent throughput gain compared to the case without the IC scheme, respectively. Thus, we can conclude that the FD IC scheme can only improve the performance of the CEUs when imposing little restriction on the radio allocation. On the other hand, the performance of both CEUs and CCUs can be enhanced by the TD IC scheme. However, the TD IC scheme has less flexibility because three subframes have to be grouped together for resource allocation. Next, we study the effects of 1D IC schemes on real-time voice over IP (VoIP) service in Fig. 3c. Since the SINR performance of CEUs can be improved by applying the IC schemes, the VoIP capacity of the CEUs is increased, with 14.3 and 28.6 percent gain corresponding to the FD IC and TD IC schemes compared to the case without the IC scheme, respectively. Usually, at least one or two resource blocks (RBs) are needed to support the transmission of each VoIP packet for the CCUs. The small SINR degradation due to the FD IC scheme does not affect the number of allocated RBs, so the VoIP capacity of the CCUs does not decrease. With the TD IC scheme, the SINR performance of the CCUs is also enhanced and leads to VoIP capacity improvement. Thus, the VoIP capacity of all users in the network with the IC schemes outperforms that without the

Performance Comparison The performances of the multihop cellular networks with the 2D IC scheme are also evaluated under the scenario with the parameters given in Table 1. In these simulations two RSs are deployed per sector while one 60 directional antenna is deployed for each BS RS link. The number ratio of CEU to CCU is set as 1:2, and the transmit power ratio between each BS and RS is 3:1. Figure 5a gives the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the received SINR in the net-

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1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 CDF CDF 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 SINR (dB) (a) 10 8.73 Aggregated cell throughput (Mb/s) 7.53 7.67 6.27 6.21 7.25 w/o IC with FD IC with TD IC VoIP Capacity (users/MHz/sector) 12 14 w/o IC with TD IC with FD IC 16 18 20 CEU All users

1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 Per user throughput (kb/s) (b) 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 14 16 18 53 7.5% 15.1% 57 61 w/o IC with FD IC with TD IC w/o IC with TD IC with FD IC 600 CEU All users

1.49 1.26 1.46

14.3% 28.6%

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CEU

Figure 3. Performance comparison between OFDM-based multihop cellular networks with/without 1D IC scheme: a) SINR distribution; b) per user throughput distribution; c) aggregated cell throughput; d) VoIP capacity. work with or without the 2D IC scheme. With the resource coordination in both the TD and FD, the SINR performance of all users is improved by the 2D IC scheme, especially for the CEUs. Since the 60 directional antenna is applied to the BS RS link in the case with two RSs per sector, less power leaking occurs compared to the case of only one RS per sector. Hence, the intersector interference on the BS MS link is greatly decreased. In addition, as the main interference of the BS RS links is not caused by leaking power of the directional antenna from neighboring sectors, the performance improvement of two-hop users with high SINR is not obvious when the 2D IC scheme is applied. In Fig. 5b the per user throughput performance of the network with/without the 2D IC scheme is also compared. Similarly, it can be seen that all users in the network can achieve significant throughput improvements, especially the CEUs, by using the 2D IC scheme. Moreover, we give the cell throughput of the network with or without the 2D IC scheme in Fig. 5c. Compared to the case without the IC scheme, aggregated cell throughput is increased by more than 25.2 percent by using the 2D IC scheme, while about 16.4 and 61.9 percent throughput gains are obtained for the CEUs and CCUs in the networks, respectively. In Fig. 5d we compare the VoIP capacity of the network with or without the 2D IC scheme. Both CEUs and CCUs can obtain SINR performance gain when the 2D IC scheme is applied in the networks, resulting in improvement of the VoIP capacity of all users. For example, about 46.6 percent VoIP capacity gain is achieved by the 2D IC scheme when all users are considered.

CONCLUSIONS
Interference coordination is essential for OFDM-based cellular multihop networks in order to solve the problem of co-channel interference and achieve high spectral efficiency. In this article we present several semi-static time/frequency interference coordination schemes, demonstrating their applicability and efficiency in 3G LTE networks toward further advancements. In our analysis we have shown that the frequency domain interference coordi-

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RS8

RS13

RS7

BS1

RS14 RS5 RS11

Radio frame i Downlink Subframe Subframe #8 #9

Downlink Subframe #0

Radio frame i+1 Uplink Subframe #2 Frequency Subframe #3

RS1 RS9

RS2 RS4

RS6

BS2

RS12

Frequency RS-MS BS-MS RS2-MS BS-RS1 BS-RS2 RS1 RS2 RS Time 4 RS3 Frequency BS-RS3 RS3-MS RS4-MS BS-MS RS5 RS6 BS-MS

BS-RS5 BS-RS6

RS5-MS RS6-MS Time

RS10 BS 3

RS3

RS15

RS16

1 1 1 subframe subframe subframe

1 1 1 subframe subframe subframe

RS17

RS18

BS-RS4

1 1 1 subframe subframe subframe

Time

(a)

(b)

Start Time-domain coordination (mitigate the inter-sector interference) Resource allocation Conjuct each three successive subframes together, and group the same kinds of links in each sector. Assign the subframes to different kinds of links, each for certain kind of link. Keep the same kind of links in the neighboring sectors in different subframes.

Power coordination Half radiated power in the BS MS subframes. Use beamforming in the BS RS subframes (optional). Frequency-domain coordination (mitigate the intra-sector interference) Resource allocation In the subframes for BS RS and RS MS links, orthogonally allocate the frequency resource to BSs and RSs in different groups as high-priority resources. Assign the remained frequency resources to BSs and RSs as low-priority resources. Power allocation Full radiated power on high-priority resources. Half radiated power on low-priority resources.

End (c)

Figure 4. Illustration of 2D interference coordination schemes in OFDM-based multihop cellular networks: a) deployment of two RSs per sector; b) resource allocation by the 2D IC scheme; c) flowchart of the 2D IC scheme. nation scheme can only improve the performance of CEUs, while the performance of both CEUs and CCUs can be enhanced by the time domain interference coordination scheme with a slight strict limitation. Furthermore, the frequency-time domain interference coordination scheme is proposed to achieve throughput gain with high flexibility.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported in part by the China NSFC under Grant 60802082, National Key Technology R&D Program of China under Grant 2009ZX03003-008-01, and Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education under Grant 200800131023.

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1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 CDF 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 -2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 SINR (dB) (a) 11.13 10 Aggregated cell throughput (Mb/s) 8.89 7.18 VoIP capacity (users/MHz/sector) 8.36 14 16 w/o IC with 2D IC 18 20 22 All users CDF CEU

1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 Per user throughput (kb/s) (b) 90 w/o IC with 2D IC 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 58.8% 17 27 46.6% 58 85 w/o IC with 2D IC w/o IC with 2D IC 700 800 CEU All users

5 2.77 1.71

All users

CCU (c)

CEU

All users (d)

CEU

Figure 5. Performance comparison between OFDM-based multihop cellular networks with/without 2D IC schemes: a) SINR distribution; b) per user throughput distribution; c) aggregated cell throughput; d) VoIP capacity.

REFERENCES
[1] 3GPP TR 36.211 v. 8.6.0, Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA), Physical Channels and Modulation (Release 8), Mar. 2009. [2] ITU-R M.1645 Rec., Framework and Overall Objectives of the Future Development of IMT-2000 and Systems Beyond IMT-2000, June 2003. [3] ITU, Final Acts WRC-07, WRC 07, Dec. 2007; http://www.itu.int/publ/R-ACT-WRC.8-2007/en. [4] Y. Yang et al., Relay Technologies for WiMAX and LTEAdvanced Mobile Systems, IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 47, no. 10, Oct. 2009, pp. 1005. [5] IST WINNER D3.5.1, Relaying Concepts and Supporting Actions in the Context of CGs; http://www.istwinner.org/WINNER2Deliverables/D3.5.1v1.0.pdf. [6] B. Can et al., Implementation Issues for OFDM-Based Multihop Cellular Networks, IEEE Commun. Mag., vol. 45, no. 9, Sept. 2007, pp. 7481. [7] 3GPP R1-050507, Soft Frequency Reuse Scheme for UTRAN LTE, Huawei, 3GPP RAN WG1 Meeting #41, May 2005. [8] 3GPP R1-050738, Interference mitigation-Considerations and Results on Frequency Reuse, Siemens, 3GPP RAN WG1 Meeting #42, Aug. 2005. [9] IEEE 802.16j-06/013r3, Multihop Relay System Evaluation Methodology (Channel Model and Performance Metric), Feb. 2007. [10] 3GPP TR 36.814 v. 1.4.1, Further Advancements for E-UTRA Physical Layer Aspects (Release 9), Sept. 2009.

BIOGRAPHIES
KAN ZHENG [M03, SM09] (kzheng@ieee.org) received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degree from Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications, China, in 1996, 2000, and 2005, respectively, where he is currently an associate professor. He worked as a researcher in companies including Siemens and Orange Labs R&D, Beijing, China. His current research interests lie in the field of signal processing for digital communications, with an emphasis on cooperative communication and heterogeneous networks. BIN FAN received his B.S. and Ph.D. from Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications, China, in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Now he works in Orange Labs R&D, Paris, France. His current research interests lie in the field of cooperative communication and radio resource management. JINHUA LIU received a B.S. from Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications in 2008, where he is currently working toward an M.S. degree. His current research interest lies in the field of signal processing for cooperative communication. YICHENG LIN received his B.S. and M.S. from Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications, China, in 2007 and 2010, respectively. His current research interest lies in the field of signal processing for radio resource management.

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