Femtocells in Cellular Radio Networks with Successive Interference Cancellation

Abstract

Interference is one of the main performance limiting factors in the use of femtocells in conventional cellular radio networks. We develop a femtocell power control scheme that relies on minimal coordination with the macrocell base station. The power control is used in conjunction with an interference sensing channel assignment mechanism. Using these two schemes we show gains over 100% in sum rate. We then develop a technique for macro users to join a nearby femtocell and share a common channel with a femtocell user through the use of interference cancellation. By adding this mechanism to the power control and channel assignment schemes, we show gains over 200% in sum rate and power savings up to 90% for macro cell users.