Interference

Analysis of Interference and Performance
in Heterogeneously Deployed LTE systems
MATTIAS BERGSTROM
Master of Science Thesis

Stockholm, Sweden 2010
Analysis of Interference and Performance

in Heterogeneously Deployed LTE systems
MATTIAS BERGSTROM
Master of Science Thesis performed at

Wireless Access Networks, Ericsson Research
September 2010
Supervisor:
Examiner:
Konstantinos Dimou
Ben Slimane
KTH School of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

Department of Communication Systems (CoS)
CoS/RCS 2006-TRITA-ICT-EX-2011:6
c Mattias Bergstrom, September 2010

Tryck: Universitetsservice AB
Abstract
Heterogeneous network deployment has been advocated as a mean to enhance
the performance of cellular networks, but at the same time heterogeneous deployments give rise to new interference scenarios which are not seen in homogeneous deployments. This report includes five studies pertaining heterogeneous
network deployments which is based on simulations of LTE in high detail on
the lower layer protocol stack. In the first study it is investigated if results from
simulated systems with ideal deployments can be generalized to realistic low
power node deployments, which is seen to be the case.
Three heterogeneous network configurations, specified by 3GPP, were compared to a macro-only system. It is observed that the gain from low power
nodes is strongly connected to the distribution of UEs. If the UE distribution
is uniform the UE throughput gain is below 100 % while if the UEs are highly
clustered a UE throughput gain of 400 % is achieved.
The configuration with uniform UE distribution was further analyzed and it
was seen that in a low load system the average UE throughput gain from low
power nodes is below 20 %. In a low loaded system with uniform UE distribution
adding low power nodes is not a good way of enhancing the system performance.
A study investigating the gain of low power node range extension showed
that SINR problems arise if the range of the low power nodes is extended,
however the system as a whole gets increased throughput. The same applies
for UE throughput. The main reasons are macro layer offloading & reduced
interference created by the macro layer.
It is showed that if more low power nodes are added the UE throughput gain
per low power node increases. It is also showed that a system with two range
extended low power nodes outperforms a system with four low power nodes
without range extension. Inter-low power node interference is seen not to be a
problem in the simulated system configurations.
iii
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Konstantinos Dimou,
for his valuable input, guidance and commitment through this project. Konstantinos has always been supportive and found time for discussions around the
project.
I am thankful to Johan Lundsj
o, manager at RAN Architecture & Protocols,
for giving me the opportunity to do this project here in Ericsson.
I would also like to thank my examiner, Ben Slimane, my colleagues; Peter
Moberg, Gunnar Mildh, Michael Eriksson and Robert Baldemair for their input
and discussions around the topic of this project and Jessica Ostergaard
for
reminding me to go home after too long days in the office.
Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 The wireless system . . .
1.1.1 First generation . .
1.1.2 Second generation
1.1.3 Third generation .
1.1.4 Fourth generation
1.2 Problem statement . . . .
1.3 Thesis outline . . . . . . .
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2 What is interference?
2.1 Frequency hopping . . .
2.2 Spatial multiplexing . .
2.3 Beam forming . . . . . .
2.4 Interference cancellation
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reception
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3 Fourth Generation cellular networks

3.1 Long Term Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.1 OFDM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.2 Spectrum flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.3 Multiple antenna technology . . . . . . .
3.1.4 Hybrid ARQ with soft combining . . . . .
3.2 LTE-Advanced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.1 Carrier aggregation . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.2 Higher order MIMO . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.3 Coordinated Multi-Point transmission and
3.2.4 Heterogeneous network deployment . . . .
4 New interference scenarios in Heterogeneous Networks

4.1 Downlink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.1 Low power eNB interference to macro UE . . . . .
4.1.2 Macro eNB interference to low power node UE . .
4.2 Uplink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2.1 Macro UE interference to low power eNB . . . . .
4.2.2 Low power node UE interference to macro eNB . .
4.3 Crucial factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.1 Cell association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.2 P0 offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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viii
Contents
5 Impact of misplacement of low power nodes

5.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2 Simulation details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.1 Performance Measurements . . . . . .
5.2.2 Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.3 System parameters . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2.4 Traffic model . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3.1 Performance overview . . . . . . . . .
5.3.2 User distribution . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3.3 Interference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3.4 SINR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3.5 Cell Throughput . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3.6 UE Throughput . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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6 Analysis of 3GPP system configurations

6.1 Simulation details . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.1.1 Configurations . . . . . . . . . .
6.1.2 System parameters . . . . . . . .
6.1.3 Traffic model . . . . . . . . . . .
6.1.4 User distribution . . . . . . . . .
6.2 Uplink results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.2.1 Performance overview . . . . . .
6.2.2 Cell throughput . . . . . . . . .
6.2.3 Interference . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.2.4 SINR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.2.5 UE Throughput . . . . . . . . .
6.3 Downlink results . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.3.1 Performance overview . . . . . .
6.3.2 Cell throughput . . . . . . . . .
6.3.3 SINR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.3.4 UE Throughput . . . . . . . . .
6.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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7.1.1 Configurations . . . . . . . . . .
7.1.3 Traffic model . . . . . . . . . . .
7.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.2.1 SINR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.2.2 Cell throughput . . . . . . . . .
7.2.3 UE Throughput . . . . . . . . .
7.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Low load
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ix
Contents
8.1.1 Configurations . . . . . . . . . .
8.1.3 Traffic model . . . . . . . . . . .
8.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.2.1 Cell Throughput . . . . . . . . .
8.2.2 Interference . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.2.3 SINR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.2.4 UE Throughput . . . . . . . . .
8.2.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Range extension
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9 Analysis of 3GPP system configurations - Multiple low power

nodes
9.1 Simulation details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.1.1 Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.1.2 System parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.1.3 Traffic model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.1.4 User distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.2.1 Cell Throughput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.2.2 Interference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.2.3 SINR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.2.4 UE Throughput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9.4 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10 Conclusions, proposal and future work
10.1 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.2 Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.2.1 Existing ICIC schemes . . . . .
10.2.2 Fractional Frequency Reuse . .
10.2.3 Proposed scheme . . . . . . . .
10.3 Proposed further studies . . . . . . . .
10.4 Alternative technology . . . . . . . . .
Bibliography
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113
List of Tables
3.1
3.2
Cell spectral efficiency requirements in IMT-Advanced. . . . . . .

Cell edge user spectral efficiency requirements in IMT-Advanced.
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12
5.1
5.2
System parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Uplink throughput. The numbers in the parentheses are the gains
compared to the reference case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Percentage of UEs connected to the low power nodes. . . . . . .
Macro PRB utilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
26
3GPP heterogeneous network deployment configurations. . . . .

User distribution and macro PRB utilization. . . . . . . . . . . .
FTP upload time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Uplink throughput. The numbers in the parentheses are the gains
FTP download time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Downlink throughput. The numbers in the parentheses are the
gains compared to the reference case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Gains from adding low power nodes in the different configurations
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5.3
5.4
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7
7.1
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7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
7.7
User distribution between macro eNB and low power

macro PRB utilization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Average uplink SINR per UE. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Average downlink SINR per UE. . . . . . . . . . . .
Average uplink cell throughput per cell. . . . . . . .
Average downlink cell throughput per cell. . . . . . .
Average uplink UE throughput per UE. . . . . . . .
Average downlink UE throughput per UE. . . . . . .
nodes and
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8.2
User distributions and macro PRB utilization. . . . . . . . . . . .

Gains from 8 dB range extension for the different configurations.
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9.1
9.2
User distributions and macro PRB utilization. . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Spectral efficiency vs. number of low power nodes per macro cell
area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
UE throughput gain and UE throughput gain per low power node.
Measured on the fiftieth percentile. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Gains from different number of low power nodes without and with
8 dB range extension compared to the reference case. . . . . . . . 100
9.3
9.4
xi
List of Figures
2.1
2.2
Interference between two terminals TA and TB . . . . . . . . . . .

Example of beam forming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
Representation of bandwidth resources

Examples of carrier aggregation. . . .
Example of beam forming. . . . . . . .
Joint processing of signals. . . . . . . .
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4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
Heterogeneous deployment example. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Interference from low power eNB to macro UE. . . . . . .
Interference from macro eNB to low power node UE. . . .
Interference from macro UE to low power eNB. . . . . . .
Interference from low power node UE to macro eNB. . . .
Illustration of RSRP and path loss based cell association.
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5.1
5.2
5.3
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5.5
5.6
5.7
Distribution of UEs between macro and low power nodes. . . . .

Interference received by base stations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average low power node uplink UE SINR. . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average macro uplink UE SINR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink UE SINR including all UEs. . . . . . . . .
Average uplink cell throughput per cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Different low power node cell sizes depending on distance to
macro node. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink low power node cell throughput. . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink macro cell throughput. . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink macro cell area throughput. . . . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink low power node UE throughput. . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink low power node UE throughput. . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink UE throughput including all UEs. . . . . .
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5.10
5.11
5.12
5.13
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7
in LTE.
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User distribution between macro eNB and low power nodes in

configuration 1, 4a and 4b. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Average uplink cell throughput per cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Path loss from one macro eNB and two low power nodes. The
cell borders are marked with vertical lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink low power node cell throughput. . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink macro cell throughput. . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink macro cell area throughput. . . . . . . . .
Time average uplink interference per PRB per cell. . . . . . . . .
xiii
5
8
34
35
35
36
37
37
38
42
45
46
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47
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48
xiv
List of Figures
6.8
6.9
6.10
6.11
6.12
6.13
6.14
6.15
6.16
6.17
6.18
6.19
6.20
6.21
6.22
6.23
6.24
CDF - average low power node uplink UE SINR. . . . . . .

CDF - average macro uplink UE SINR. . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - distance from macro eNBs to their macro UEs. . . .
CDF - average uplink UE SINR including all UEs. . . . . .
CDF - average uplink low power node UE throughput. . . .
CDF - average uplink macro UE throughput. . . . . . . . .
CDF - average uplink UE throughput including all UEs. . .
Average cell throughput. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average downlink low power node cell throughput. .
CDF - average downlink macro cell throughput. . . . . . . .
CDF - average downlink macro cell area throughput. . . . .
CDF - average low power node downlink UE SINR. . . . . .
CDF - average macro downlink UE SINR. . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average downlink UE SINR including all UEs. . . . .
CDF - average downlink low power node UE throughput. .
CDF - average downlink macro UE throughput. . . . . . . .
CDF - average downlink UE throughput including all UEs.
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7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
Average
Average
Average
Average
Average
Average
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8.1
User distribution between macro eNB and low power nodes in

configuration 1, 4a and 4b with and without 8 dB range extension.
Average cell throughput per cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Time average uplink interference per PRB per cell. . . . . . . . .
Average SINR per UE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average low power node UE SINR. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Path loss from macro eNB and macro UE. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Uplink interference from macro layer to low power node layer. . .
Downlink interference from macro layer to low power node layer.
CDF - average macro UE SINR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average UE SINR including all UEs. . . . . . . . . . . . .
5 percentile SINR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average low power node UE throughput. . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average macro UE throughput. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average UE throughput including all UEs. . . . . . . . . .
Example of a system map for configuration 4a. . . . . . . . . . .
Legend to figure 8.15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5 percentile UE throughput. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
8.6
8.7
8.8
8.9
8.10
8.11
8.12
8.13
8.14
8.15
8.16
8.17
9.1
9.2
9.3
9.4
9.5
uplink SINR per UE. . . . . . . .

downlink SINR per UE. . . . . .
uplink cell throughput per cell. .
downlink cell throughput per cell.
uplink UE throughput per UE. .
downlink UE throughput per UE.
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Average cell throughput per cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Spectral efficiency vs. number of low power nodes per macro
area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Time average uplink interference per PRB per cell. . . . . .
Average SINR per UE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CDF - average low power node UE SINR. . . . . . . . . . .
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cell
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xv
List of Figures
9.6
9.7
9.8
9.9
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97
98
98
99
Performance evaluation of ICIC schemes. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Static reuse ICIC scheme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Fractional Frequency Reuse ICIC scheme. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Allocation order based ICIC scheme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
FFR scheme protecting UEs in range extended region of OA low
power node cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.6 FFR scheme protecting UEs in range extended region of CSG low
power node cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
10.7 Reception of transmission grant and downlink data transmission
simultaneously. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
106
107
107
108
10.1
10.2
10.3
10.4
10.5
CDF
CDF
CDF
CDF
average
average
average
average
macro UE SINR. . . . . . . . . .
low power node UE throughput. .
macro UE throughput. . . . . . .
UE throughput including all UEs.
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109
110
111
List of Abbreviations
AMPS
Advanced Mobile Phone System
CA
Carrier Aggregation
CB
Coordinated Beam Forming
CoMP
Coordinated Multipoint transmission and reception
CS
Coordinated Scheduling
CSG
Closed Subscriber Group
CSG
Closed Subscriber Group
eNB
E-UTRAN Node B
FDD
Frequency-Division Duplexing
FDMA
Frequency-Division Multiple Access
FFR
Fractional Frequency Reuse
HARQ
Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request
HeNB
Home E-UTRAN Node B
HII
High Interference Indication
ICIC
Inter-cell Interference Coordination
ITU
International Telecommunication Union
JP
Joint Processing
JT
Joint Transmission
LTE
Long Term Evolution
LTE-Advanced
Long Term Evolution-Advanced
MIMO
Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output
NAT
Network Address Translation
NMT
Nordic Mobile Telephone
OA
Open Access
xvii
xviii
List of Figures
OFDM
Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing
OI
Overload Indication
PRB
Physical Resource Block
QAM
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
QPSK
Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying
RE
Range extension
RNTP
Relative Narrowband Downlink TX Power
RSRP
Reference Signal Received Power
SIC
Successive Interference Cancellation
SINR
Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio
TDD
Time-Division Duplexing
TDMA
Time-Division Multiple Access
TTI
Transmission Time Interval
UE
User Equipment
UMTS
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
WCDMA
Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1
The wireless system
The usage of cellular systems has been growing since the systems got deployed
in the 1980s. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) estimated 4.6
billion mobile subscriptions globally in 2009. In recent years the cellular systems
have also started to be used for data traffic and in 2008 the number of mobile
broadband subscriptions overtook the number of fixed broadband subscriptions.
What we want to achieve with a cellular system is to offer connections to the
users anywhere at any time. The user demands of the cellular systems have also
increased as the years have passed and new network architecture and technologies are needed. After the first generation of cellular system was introduced in
the 1980s a new generation has come about around once a decade. The fourth
generation cellular systems is planned to be deployed in 2011.
1.1.1
First generation
The first generation of cellular systems, 1G, was introduced in the 1980s and
was targeting voice communication. 1G systems are analogue where the users
are separated in the frequency domain, so called Frequency Division Multiple
Access (FDMA). NMT and AMPS are examples of 1G systems.
1.1.2
Second generation
The second generation of cellular systems, 2G, was digital. The digitalization of
the system made it possible to send data traffic, enabling low rate data services
such as SMS. The 2G systems also had higher capacities than the preceding
analogue system because of the digitalization. The traffic could be compressed
and multiplexed also in time, so called Time division Multiple Access (TDMA).
This gave more degrees of freedom which increased the capacity because of
higher utilization of the bandwidth. Compared to 1G systems, where a channel
was assigned a terminal even during times when it did not transmit, the second
generation technologies could let several users transmit in parallel through time.
GSM is the most widespread 2G system.
1
1.1.3
Chapter 1. Introduction
Third generation
In the third generation cellular systems, 3G, the throughput was further increased which made services such as video calls possible. One of the most
used 3G technologies is Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)
which uses Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) to separate
the users. WCDMA uses near-orthogonal codes to spread the terminals signals
over a wider bandwidth making their signals look like Gaussian noise to each
other. Since the terminals all use the same bandwidth, in which their signals
appears as noise to each other, adding a terminal effectively adds noise. A new
terminal can be added to the system as long as the noise is not exceeding a
critical level. WCDMA is therefore said to have a soft terminal limit compared
to a hard terminal limit as in the case with TDMA or FDMA where there is a
fixed number of channels.
1.1.4
Fourth generation
For the fourth generation of cellular systems, 4G, the requirements are further increased and will have peak data rates of 100 Mbps for downlink and 50
Mbps in uplink. One promising technology to meet the 4G-standard is Long
Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-Advanced). LTE-Advanced is an evolution of
a technology named LTE which has not fully met the requirements to be called
a fourth generation technology. The requirements are found in [1].
Key technologies in LTE-Advanced that are making it possible to meet the
requirements are Carrier Aggregation, multiple antennas, heterogeneous deployment and coordinated transmissions between different base stations. LTE and
LTE-Advanced are described in more detail in section 3.1 and 3.2 respectively.
1.2
Problem statement
The bandwidth used in radio communication is a scarce commodity and as the

demands on the networks increase there is a need to make more efficient use of
the bandwidth. To enhance the performance of cellular networks the following
deployment approaches have been suggested; denser macro base station deployment, more advanced macro base stations and heterogeneous deployments.
Macro base stations are expensive and might take long time to deploy. Heterogeneous deployments is an alternative in which lower power base stations are
deployed where there are clusters of users with high traffic demands or in areas
where the macro base stations has bad coverage. The low power base stations
are cheaper and can be deployed without making a big impact on the rest of
the network. On the downside, new interference scenarios follows heterogeneous
deployments. This report will discuss interference scenarios and performance
problems associated with heterogeneous deployment. Possible countermeasures
will be presented and assessed.
1.3
Thesis outline
This report has the following structure.
1.3. Thesis outline
In chapter 2 a background to what interference is and how it arises will be

presented. Common ways to mitigate interference in cellular systems will also
be explained.
Chapter 3 gives an introduction to LTE and LTE-Advanced and their main
technologies.
Chapter 4 explains the new interference scenarios associated with heterogeneous network deployment.
Five studies have been performed for this report. First a study investigating
the impact of misplacement of low power nodes is found in chapter 5. In simulations, unlike the reality, the placement of low power nodes is often ideal. The
purpose of the study is to see how ideal versus non-ideal deployment affects the
system performance.
3GPP has presented a set of system configurations which should be considered when simulating heterogeneous networks. In chapter 6 these configurations
have been simulated and the performance has been analyzed to find possible
problems related to heterogeneous deployments.
In one of the configurations it was seen that adding low power nodes will
not give much gain. In chapter 7 this configuration has been further analyzed,
this time with lower load to see the benefits from adding low power nodes in
that configuration.
To increase the gain from the low power nodes their cell sizes can be increased, so called range extension. A study pertaining range extension is found
in chapter 8.
In chapter 9 a study is presented where the number of low power nodes is
varied to see how the spectral efficiency and other performance measurements
are affected. Another question this study answers is how serious interference
between low power nodes is for the performance.
Conclusions, proposal and future work is found in chapter 10.1. The major interference problem seen arised when the range of low power nodes was
extended. An ICIC-scheme is proposed to mitigate this interference. Joint
Scheduling between Home eNBs and macro eNBs is proposed as future work.
Chapter 2
What is interference?
The capacity C of a communication channel with bandwidth B, such as the
channel between a mobile phone and a base station, follows equation 2.1 according to Shannons Theorem.[2] SINR is the Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise
Ratio and is discussed below.
C = B log2 (1 + SIN R)
(2.1)
If a transmitter TA transmits a signal to its desired receiver RA , at the same

time as a transmitter TB transmits a signal, not only will RA receive TA s signal
but also the signal from TB . See figure 2.1. At the receiver the signals will
superposition and from RA s point of view TB s signal will be interference. Signal quality is in general quantified with Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio
(SINR). High interference leads to low SINR meaning low quality of the wanted
signal.
TB
RA
RB
TA
Figure 2.1: Interference between two terminals TA and TB .

In digital communication the receiver is trying to detect the transmitted
data. The lower the SINR is the harder it is for the receiver to correctly detect
the transmitted signal. When the SINR is below a threshold correct detection
is not possible. This means that if the number of simultaneously transmitting
users within a bandwidth is too high no detections will be correct.
In cellular networks the served area is divided in to smaller zones called cells.
A cell will have a base station and the terminals in the cell will be connected to
5
Chapter 2. What is interference?
its base station. To make efficient use of the bandwidth different cells can use
the same bandwidth. This reuse of bandwidth introduces some interference as
there is a possibility of terminals in different cells using the same bandwidth at
the same time. To counter interference different methods can be used, some of
which are discussed in this chapter.
2.1
Frequency hopping
When a terminal gets assigned a channel it can either be assigned a free channel
or a channel used by other terminals in other cells. If assigned a free channel
the terminal will not experience any interference. If assigned a channel used
by another terminal they will interfere each other until one stops transmitting.
To counter this problem the terminals can at regular time intervals change
channel. There will be a possibility of another collision but since the terminals
will only stay in their channel for a limited time they will only be affected by
the interference until the next frequency hop.1 The effect of frequency hopping
can be seen as spreading the interference through time.
What is needed? The transmitter and the receiver need to agree on the
hopping pattern.
Pros
Interference gets averaged though time which gives a more reliable
transmission.
Cons
Transmitters and receivers need some complexity to make them able
to change frequency during transmission.
The transmitter and receiver needs to communicate in advance to
agree on the hopping pattern.
2.2
Spatial multiplexing
The principle of spatial multiplexing is to increase the number of available transmission channels between transmitter and receiver. This can be achieved by having multiple transmitting and receiving antennas, a so called MIMO antenna
setup. According to Shannons theorem the capacity is given by:
C = B log2 (1 + SIN R)
In a MIMO system with Nt antennas at the transmitter and Nr antennas at
the receiver, theoretically, NL = min(Nt , Nr ) different, uncorrelated paths can
exist between them. The capacity of each channel is:

Nr
SIN R
C = B log2 1 +
NL
1 As
long as the terminals are not unlucky and jumps to the same channel again.
2.3. Beam forming
This gives a total capacity of:

Nr
C = B NL log2 1 +
SIN R
NL
In theory, the capacity is increasing linearly with the number of channels,
which can be created by adding antennas.[3]
In order for the receiver to demultiplex the data from the links it needs
to know the properties of the created channels. This is achieved by having
the transmitter transmit a known reference signal. The receiver estimates the
channel properties from the received version of the reference signal and then
tells the transmitter how it should code the data onto the antennas in order to
get the best transmission.[4]
What is needed? Multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver are
needed. The receiver also needs to do channel estimation and feed it back
to the transmitter.
Pros
Theoretical linear increase of the capacity within a given bandwidth.
Cons
Complex antenna structures.
Channel estimation is required.
Communication between the transmitter and received is needed.
2.3
Beam forming
Beam forming is to change the antenna beam pattern by use of array antennas.
The phase and amplitude of the signal is adjusted at each antenna element to
form the beam pattern. The antenna beam pattern can be changed so that
the main lobe is pointed towards a desired transmitter/receiver to achieve high
antenna gain or to point the nulls in direction of undesired transmitters/receivers
to avoid interference, see figure 2.2.[3]
To form the antenna beam the antenna array needs several elements spaced
sufficiently far apart. Due to size limitations of mobile terminals beam forming
is not suitable for terminals.
What is needed? Array antennas and feedback of measurements to the transmitter which are used to adjust the beam pattern is needed.
Pros
Transmitted power can be reduced due to higher antenna gains in
main lobe.
Interference can be reduced.
Cons
Chapter 2. What is interference?
Figure 2.2: Example of beam forming.
2.4
Advanced antenna structure with multiple antenna elements is needed.

Pre-coding of the signal needs to be done before transmission.
Not suitable for mobile terminals.
Needs to sense the direction of the mobile terminals.
Signaling between the terminal and the base station is needed.
Interference cancellation
In cellular networks several users can use the same bandwidth at the same time
and therefore interfere each other. If a receiver can estimate the interfering
signals they can cancel the interference by subtracting it. There are several
ways of doing this, one of which is called Successive Interference Cancellation
(SIC).
In SIC the transmitters are given different code words with which they encode the signals before transmission. The receiver will try to demodulate and
decode one of the signals from the received compound signal to extract its message. If successfully extracted the message is re-encoded, re-modulated and
subtracted from the original signal. The procedure is repeated until all signals
have been extracted.
As signals get subtracted the SINR is getting higher in each recursion. The
most effective way of extracting the signals is therefore by starting with the
highest SINR signal.[5] If a decoding error is made the wrong signal will be
subtracted which will destroy the compound signal and the error will in that
sense propagate to the next step.
What is needed? The receiver needs to know how each signal is modulated
and encoded in order to decode and demodulate them. The structure differs depending on which cancellation method is used and can be more or less complex.
2.4. Interference cancellation
Pros
Ability to extract multiple signals which are interfering each other.
Cons
Complex receiver structure.
Delay due to signal processing.
Not always possible to decode.
Chapter 3
Fourth Generation cellular

networks
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has set the requirements for
the fourth generation telecommunication systems, also called IMT-Advanced.[1]
The requirements are as follows:
Peak spectral efficiency of 15 bit/s/Hz and 6.75 bit/s/Hz in downlink
and uplink respectively1 .
Data latencies of maximum 10 ms in both uplink and downlink.
Latencies of maximum 50 and 150 ms for intra- and inter-frequency handovers respectively.
Scalable bandwidth up to 40 M Hz.
Increased cell spectral efficiency according to table 3.1. The test environments are described in [6].
Test environment
Indoor
Microcellular
Base coverage urban
High speed
Downlink (bit/s/Hz/cell)
3
2.6
2.2
1.1
Uplink (bit/s/Hz/cell)
2.55
1.8
1.4
0.7
Table 3.1: Cell spectral efficiency requirements in IMT-Advanced.

Increased cell edge user spectral efficiency according to table 3.2. The test
environments are described in [6].
Interworking with other radio access systems.
Unicast and multicast broadcast services.
1 Assuming
an antenna configuration of downlink 4 4, uplink 2 4
11
12
Chapter 3. Fourth Generation cellular networks
Test environment
Indoor
Microcellular
Base coverage urban
High speed
Downlink (bit/s/Hz/cell)
0.1
0.075
0.06
0.04
Uplink (bit/s/Hz/cell)
0.07
0.05
0.03
0.015
Table 3.2: Cell edge user spectral efficiency requirements in IMT-Advanced.

As discussed in section 1.1.4 LTE-Advanced is one of the most promising
technologies to reach the requirements for a fourth generation wireless communication system. The focus in this report is on heterogeneous deployments
in LTE-Advanced and we will, in section 3.2, look in to more details about
LTE-Advanced.
LTE-Advanced is an evolution of LTE which will be described first.
3.1
Long Term Evolution
Long Term Evolution (LTE) is an air interface for cellular networks which is
defined by 3GPP. The main components of LTE are introduced in this section.
3.1.1
OFDM
In LTE Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing-based (OFDM) transmission schemes are used for both uplink and downlink transmission. OFDM can
be seen as a combination of TDMA and FDMA where the time is divided in
to timeslots and frequency is divided into a large set of orthogonal narrowband channels called sub carriers. Twelve sub carriers are grouped together
into a Physical Resource Block (PRB), see figure 3.1. This separation of User
Equipments (UEs) means that is no interference between UEs within a cell but
intercell interference exists.
Physical
Resource Block
t
Figure 3.1: Representation of bandwidth resources in LTE.
Before transmission the transmitter parallelizes the signal to several lower
rate signals which gets modulated using QPSK, 16 QAM or 64 QAM. Each
3.2. LTE-Advanced
13
low rate signal will be transmitted on a separate sub carrier. The receiver
then demodulates the signals and recreates the original signal before performing
detection.
3.1.2
Spectrum flexibility
LTE supports both Frequency-Division Duplexing (FDD) and Time-Division

Duplexing (TDD) to separate uplink and downlink communication.
Which band and bandwidth used by LTE is not specified in the standard.
This implies that operators can deploy LTE in a variety of frequency bands. An
operator which previously deployed GSM in the 900 M Hz spectrum can deploy
LTE there instead and because the bandwidth is not specified the transition
from GSM to LTE can be done gradually.[4]
3.1.3
Multiple antenna technology
As discussed in chapter 2, it is beneficial to have several antennas for beam

forming and spatial multiplexing. In LTE the terminals (UE in 3GPP terms)
and base stations (eNB in 3GPP terms) supports up to two and four antennas
respectively.[7][8]
3.1.4
Hybrid ARQ with soft combining
To cope with errors created in non ideal channels Hybrid ARQ (HARQ) is
utilized in LTE. The transmitted data is coupled with two sets of redundant
bits. One set of which is used by the receiver to first try to correct errors and
another set which later is used to detect uncorrected errors.
After that the receiver has performed the correction of possible errors and
detected whether the transmission was successful or not it will send a report
to the transmitter of the outcome. In case of an erroneous transmission the
transmitter resends the data.
In HARQ the erroneous packets are discarded. A packet with errors can
however contain some valuable information which would be lost if the packet is
discarded. To avoid this waste a modification of the Hybrid ARQ scheme has
been done. Hybrid ARQ with soft combining will save erroneous packets to be
combined with retransmitted packets. The combination of two or more packets
will be more reliable and will have higher chance of a successful detection.[4]
3.2
LTE-Advanced
The LTE standard does not fully reach the ITU requirements for a 4G system
and is sometimes called 3.9G. LTE-Advanced is, however, planned to reach those
requirements. 3GPPs aim is to have peak data rates of 1 Gbps in downlink and
500 M bps in uplink in a bandwidth of 100 M Hz. The spectrum efficiency will
then be 30 bit/s/Hz and 15 bit/s/Hz in downlink and uplink respectively. The
key components that will make this possible are, among others, Carrier Aggregation, higher order MIMO, Heterogeneous network deployment and CoMP
which are described below.[9]
14
LTE-A
LTE-A
LTE-A
LTE-A
LTE-A
(a) Multiple component carriers
Other
services
LTE-A
LTE-A
LTE-A
(b) Separated component carriers
Figure 3.2: Examples of carrier aggregation.
3.2.1
Carrier aggregation
In LTE the bandwidth can, as discussed in section 3.1.2, change in size. The
bandwidth can be as narrow as around 1 M Hz up to 20 M Hz. Something which
is new for LTE-Advanced is that it can be deployed using several frequency
bands, adjacent or not, see figure 3.2a and 3.2b. The concept is called Carrier
Aggregation (CA) in 3GPP terms where the bands used are called component
carriers.
Carrier Aggregation will be backward compatible with LTE UEs. LTE UEs
will, however, only be able to use one component carrier at one time while
LTE-Advanced UEs can use several to reach higher data rates. Carrier Aggregation is an important component in reaching higher data rates in the sense
that operators can deploy LTE-Advanced in frequency bands they already own
and gradually migrate to LTE-Advanced as described in section 3.1.2 instead of
buying new bandwidth for LTE-Advanced.
3.2.2
Higher order MIMO
Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna configurations refer to the

existence of multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver. With multiple
antennas multiple channels can be created between the transmitter and receiver
for so called spatial multiplexing described in section 2.2. MIMO was included
in the LTE standard with support for four antennas at the base station and two
antennas in the UE. In LTE-Advanced it will be possible to have eight antennas
at the base station and four in the UE, or even more.
3.2.3
Coordinated Multi-Point transmission and reception
Coordinated Multi-Point transmission and reception (CoMP) is a technology

aimed to improve coverage of high data rates, cell edge performance as well as
overall system performance. The principle of CoMP methods is to have several eNBs coordinating their transmissions. There are two categories of CoMP;
3.2. LTE-Advanced
15
Coordinated Scheduling/Coordinated Beam forming (CS/CB) and Joint Processing/Joint Transmission (JP/JT).
The first type, Coordinated Scheduling/Coordinated Beam forming, means
that the involved eNBs are coordinating the access to the resource blocks in a
way so that interference will be avoided. If, for example, one eNB is communicating with an edge UE the neighboring eNB should then avoid schedule one of
its edge UEs at the same time. Beam forming can also be used in a way so that
the eNBs coordinate their beams not to interfere with each other. See figure
3.3.
Figure 3.3: Example of beam forming.

In Joint Processing/Joint Transmission several cooperating eNBs are transmitting to one single UE. The data which is going to be transmitted to the UE
therefore needs to be available at all involved eNBs. Interference can be avoided
by having the cooperating eNBs process the signals in a way so that interfering
signals will destruct at the UE. To achieve this, a lot of signaling is needed to
be sent over the back haul at the same time as the eNBs have access to the
channel conditions.[9] See figure 3.4.
One difficulty with CoMP is that if we want the eNBs to cooperate they need
to be able to exchange messages within a few milliseconds to not be obsolete
when arriving. This put latency and throughput restrictions on the connections
between the nodes.[10]
3.2.4
Heterogeneous network deployment
Heterogeneous network deployment refers to a network where eNBs of different

transmit powers, i.e. different cell sizes, is distributed in a nonuniform manner
throughout the served area. To increase the performance and offer higher data
rates it is possible to add eNBs with low output power at heavy loaded areas
where the signal from the macro eNB is weak. Below is a description of the
base stations in LTE-Advanced is specified.
16
Figure 3.4: Joint processing of signals.

Macro eNB is the top level node. The UEs should be able to reach a
macro base station from anywhere within the service area. The transmit
power is typically around 43 dBm. The macro eNBs are connected to each
other with a dedicated back haul connection.
Relay eNB is a low power (23 30 dBm) eNB with a over-the-air back
haul connection to the serving macro eNB.
Pico eNB is a low power eNB which has a dedicated back haul connection. The transmit power is usually around 23 30 dBm. The nodes are
deployed by the operator.
Femto eNB, or Home eNB (HeNB), as they also are called, are low power
nodes that the users can buy and deploy where they need. Femto eNBs are
connected to the rest of the network through the Internet. Since the users,
instead of the operators, deploy femto eNBs planning is not possible for
the femto eNBs. The femto eNBs can operate in two modes; open access
or Closed Subscriber Group (CSG). If operating in open access any UE
can connect to the node while in the CSG mode only authorized UEs can
connect. The owner of a femto eNB can for example give access to its
family and friends.[11]
Chapter 4
New interference scenarios

in Heterogeneous Networks
Heterogeneous network deployment both has benefits and drawbacks. It is beneficial to add low power nodes where the macro eNBs signal has problem reaching,
inside buildings for examples. It is also beneficial to add low power nodes in
high user density areas to support the high traffic. On the other hand, new interference scenarios are created which are not seen in traditional homogeneous
deployments. Section 4.1.1 to 4.2.2 describes four interference scenarios related
to heterogeneous deployments. Section 4.3 discusses how cell association and
the UE target output power can be adjusted to mitigate interference.
Low power node 1
Low power node 3
Low power node 2
Figure 4.1: Heterogeneous deployment example.
17
18
4.1
4.1.1
Chapter 4. New interference scenarios in Heterogeneous

Networks
Downlink
Low power eNB interference to macro UE
Low power nodes and macro eNBs normally use the same spectrum. Because
of this, a macro UE close to a low power node might receive a stronger signal
from the low power node than from the macro eNB which results in low SINR.
This effect gets worse in cases when the distance to the macro eNB is big and
when the macro UE is close to the low power node. See figure 4.2.
Macro UE
Low power node UE
Figure 4.2: Interference from low power eNB to macro UE.
4.1.2
Macro eNB interference to low power node UE
In case a low power node is close to the macro eNB the UEs connected to the
low power node can get interference from the macro eNB. Since the macro eNB
has higher output power than low power nodes there can be cases when the low
power node UEs gets a stronger signal from the macro than from the low power
node. The closer the low power eNB is to the macro eNB the stronger this effect
gets. See figure 4.3.
4.2
4.2.1
Uplink
Macro UE interference to low power eNB
Low power nodes will receive interference from macro UEs. The further a UE
gets from the serving eNB the higher power it transmits in order to reach the
eNB. This effect gets stronger when the low power node is on the macro cell
edge. See figure 4.4.
4.2.2
Low power node UE interference to macro eNB
When a low power eNB is close to the macro eNB the signals from the UEs in
the low power cell can reach the macro eNB and therefore create interference.
19
4.3. Crucial factors
Macro UE
Low power node UE
Figure 4.3: Interference from macro eNB to low power node UE.
Macro UE
Low power node UE
Figure 4.4: Interference from macro UE to low power eNB.

This is shown in figure 4.5.
4.3
Crucial factors
Aside from the factors given in section 4.1.1 to 4.2.2 other factors can affect
the interference in the system, such as cell association and P0 offsets discussed
below.
4.3.1
Cell association
As discussed, high interference can arise when UEs are close to an eNB that they
are not connected to. Therefore cell selection in heterogeneous networks is an
important factor to the system performance. The task of assigning UEs to base
stations is non-trivial and there is no universally optimal way of solving the task.
20
Chapter 4. New interference scenarios in Heterogeneous

Networks
Macro UE
Low power node UE
Figure 4.5: Interference from low power node UE to macro eNB.
If, for example, the cell association is optimized for downlink transmissions the
upload transmissions will suffer and vice versa.
To optimize the downlink performance the UE should be assigned to the
base stations from which the strongest signal is received. In this way the higher
power a base station is transmitting the bigger the cell gets. This approach in
cell association is called Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP).
To optimize uplink transmissions the UEs should be assigned to the base
stations to which the path loss is lowest. This way of path loss based cell
association will make the UEs connect to the base station which will have the
best potential to receive it.
Figure 4.6 shows these two ways of association UEs with the low power
nodes. If RSRP cell association is used the low power node cell will be smaller
having the blue cell border. If path loss based cell association is used the cell
border will be larger and have the red cell border. In either case the UEs in the
yellow region will create or receive interference.
If RSRP cell association is used the UEs in the yellow region will be connected to the macro eNB for optimal downlink performance. As seen in the
figure the UEs in the yellow region will be closer to the low power node but
connected to the macro eNB. This means that the low power node will receive a
stronger version of their signal than the macro eNB and uplink performance is
not optimal. They will also create interference to the low power node described
in section 4.2.1.
If path loss based cell association is used the UEs in the yellow region will
connect to the low power nodes. In this case they will be connected to the base
station which will get the strongest version of their transmitted signal which
will optimize uplink performance. In downlink there will be problems. The UEs
in the yellow region gets a stronger signal from the macro eNB compared to the
low power node and the signal received from the macro eNB is interference to
them.
A compromise between RSRP and path loss based cell association is to use
RSRP with offsets. When comparing the received power from two base stations,
4.3. Crucial factors
21
Figure 4.6: Illustration of RSRP and path loss based cell association.
say a macro eNB and a low power eNB, an offset is added to the measured
received power from the low power node resulting in that the UEs will with
higher probability connect to the low power node. This can be thought of as
enlarging the low power cells without changing their output power and is called
range extension (RE).
4.3.2
P0 offset
As we saw earlier in this chapter the difference in output power between low
power nodes and macro nodes creates interference problems. A macro UE just
outside the cell border of a low power node can create strong uplink interference
to the low power node. See section 4.2.1.
To overcome this problem the low power node can tell its UEs to increase
their output power to fend the high interference.[12]
Chapter 5
Impact of misplacement of
low power nodes
The following study will show how misplacement of low power nodes within a
hot zone will affect the performance of the system.
5.1
Background
In cellular networks users tend to gather in certain areas, such as in a shopping

mall or a busy square, forming so called hot zones. To support the high traffic
in a hot zone a low power base station can be deployed in it.
Hot zones are often modeled in an ideal manner as a perfect circle in which
a low power node is placed in the center. In reality a hot zone is defined by
the location of the UEs. The shape and location of hot zones therefore change
as the UEs move and the low power nodes are in general not located in the
center of the hot zones. The aim of this study is to see how the performance
is affected by having non perfect deployment compared to perfect deployment
of low power nodes within hot zones. To investigate this there is a need to see
how the distribution of UEs between the low power nodes and the macro nodes
together with the SINR distributions are changing in the different deployment
scenarios. The conclusions obtained for uplink are applicable to downlink as
well.
5.2
Simulation details
To perform the simulations in this report a simulation tool which simulates

LTE in high detail on the lower layer protocol stack has been used. System
parameters such as traffic model, propagation model and deployment are input
in the simulator and the output has then been processed in MatLab.
5.2.1
Performance Measurements
In this section details about the performance measurements are described. The
performance measurements are calculated in the same manner in all studies in
23
24
Chapter 5. Impact of misplacement of low power nodes
this report.
PRB utilization
In each Transmission Time Interval (TTI) the PRB utilization is calculated
by dividing the number of PRBs used for transmission by the total number of
PRBs, according to equation 5.1. The PRB utilization is averaged over the
whole simulation time.
P RB utilization =
number of P RBs used f or transmission

total number of P RBs
(5.1)
Interference
The base stations will sum the total received power under a time t seconds.
After t seconds the interference is calculated by subtracting the power of useful
signal from the total power. The interference is calculated according to equation
5.2 and is averaged over time, PRB and cell and presented in dBm.
Interf erence = 10 log10 (T otal received power U sef ul signal power) + 30
(5.2)
The time t is 0.2 seconds in these simulations.
SINR
The SINR is the useful signal in a transmission divided by the interference plus
noise, see equation 5.3. The SINR is presented in dB.
U sef ul signal power
Interf erence
The SINR is averaged over a time t = 0.2 s
SIN R =
(5.3)
Cell throughput
The cell throughput is calculated by starting a timer and having a counter
count the number of received bits. After a time t the simulator calculates the
throughput according to equation 5.4 after which the number of received bits is
set to zero before the counter is restarted.
Cell throughput =
N umber of received bits

t
(5.4)
Where t = 0.2 s.
UE throughput
The UE throughput is calculated in a similar way as the cell throughput, see
equation 5.5.
U E throughput =
Where t = 0.2 s.
N umber of received bits

t
(5.5)
25
5.2. Simulation details
5.2.2
Configurations
Two cases have been simulated. First the low power nodes have been placed, as
they often are in simulations, in the center of the hot zone, from here on refereed
to as bingo deployment. Thereafter the low power nodes have been placed
randomly within the hot zones, referred to as random deployment. Within the
hot zones 50 % of the users are placed, while the rest of the users are distributed
randomly within the system.
No low power nodes. (Reference case)
Bingo deployment. One hot zone per macro cell area where 50 % of the
UEs are placed. A low power node is deployed in the center of each hot
zone.
0 dB Range extension
Random deployment. One hot zone where 50 % of the UEs are placed. A
low power node is deployed at a random location within the hot zone.
5.2.3
System parameters
Range extension has been achieved by changing the cell association algorithm.
The UEs measure the received signal power from the all base stations from
which they receive a signal. For all low power nodes an offset is added to the
received power. The UEs then connect to the base station which has the highest
value.
The system parameters are found in table 5.1. The reason for not having
shadow is to make the simulations run faster.
The propagation model is defined by the following two equations. The gain
from a macro eNB to a UE is follows equation 5.6 and the gain from a low power
node to a UE follows equation 5.7.

Gain = 35.3 3.76 10 log10 (distance) + 14 min 12
angle
70
360 2

, 20
(5.6)
Gain = 50.6 3.67 10 log10 (distance)
(5.7)
where distance is the distance from a UE to its base station and angle is the
angle between the UE and middle of the base station antenna beam.
26

Parameter
Value
Deployment
Number of macro base stations
Number of cells per macro base station
Hot zone radius
Cell radius
Macro to macro distance
Minimum LPN to LPN distance
Minimum LPN to macro distance
Resources
Bandwidth
Number of PRBs
Propagation
Macro propagation factor
Macro attenuation constant
Low power node propagation factor
Low power node attenuation constant
Shadow fading
Base station specifics
Noise figure
Macro base station output power
Macro base station antenna elements (per cell)
Low power base station output power
Low power base station antenna elements
Transmit antenna ports
Receive antenna ports
UE specifics
Speed
Output power
Noise figure
UE antenna elements
Transmit antenna ports
Receive antenna ports
Miscellaneous
UE scheduling algorithm
7
3
40 m
167 m
500 m
75 m
75 m
10 MHz
50
-
3.76
35.3
3.67
50.6
-
5 dB
40 W
2
1W
2
1
2
0 m/s
0.2 W
9 dB
2
1
2
Round robin
Table 5.1: System parameters.
5.2.4
Traffic model
The traffic model is chosen to comply with the Poisson based traffic model 1
specified in [9]. Users arrive in the system following a Poisson distribution with
an arrival intensity of users per second. They upload or download one FTP
packet of fixed size and then disappear from the system.
: 150 UE/s system wide. (7.14 UE/s/cell)
FTP packet size: 100 kByte
27
5.3. Results
This traffic model was chosen in order generate fixed offered traffic regardless
of how the system performs in different situations. The traffic model generates
the following offered traffic.
120 Mbps system wide.
5.712 Mbps per macro cell area.
Simulation time is 100 seconds during which 14947 UEs was created, i.e.
149.47 UEs / second.
5.3
Results
The following results were obtained by computer simulations. Only uplink performance has been analyzed in this study.
5.3.1
Performance overview
Macro cell area

throughput (Mbps)
Macro cell
throughput (Mbps)
Low power node
throughput (Mbps)
16 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
0 dB Bingo
Reference case
In table 5.2 the throughput performance has been summarized.
5.8
5.8
5.8
5.8
5.8
5.8
(5%)
(5%)
(5%)
(5%)
(5%)
(5%)
5.5
4.4
4.6
3.2
3.5
2.4
2.4
1.4
1.2
2.7
2.4
3.4
3.4
5.5
0.58
0.58
0.58
0.58
0.58
0.58
(bps/Hz/Macro cell area)
(5%)
(5%)
(5%)
(5%)
(5%)
(5%)
5 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
50 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
95 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
0.78
0.73
1.0
0.98
1.1
1.1
(5500%)
(5100%)
(7000%)
(6900%)
(7800%)
(7800%)
Spectral efficiency
0.55
0.014
1.0
1.6
1.5
1.4
1.6
1.6
1.7
1.7
(50%)
(40%)
(60%)
(60%)
(70%)
(70%)
1.8
1.8
1.9
1.8
1.9
1.9
(15.5%)
(15.5%)
(18.8%)
(15.5%)
(18.8%)
(18.8%)
Table 5.2: Uplink throughput. The numbers in the parentheses are the gains
compared to the reference case.
5.3.2
User distribution
The number of UEs in the hot zones is 50 % in all configurations. To cover the
whole hot zone means that we should see 50 % of the UEs connection go the
28
low power nodes.1 In figure 5.1 and table 5.3 the percentage of UEs connection
to the low power nodes is displayed.
User distributions
3500
3000
Number of Users
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
Macro users
Low power node users
0
No low power nodeBingo
Random
Bingo 8dB Random 8dBBingo 16dBRandom 16dB
Figure 5.1: Distribution of UEs between macro and low power nodes.
From table 5.3 we can see that when RSRP is used without any offset 25 %
and 20 % of the UEs are connection to the low power nodes in the bingo and
random case respectively. This means that 50 % and 40 % of the hot zone is
covered by the low power cell. When the offset is increased a larger portion of
the hot zones are covered by the low power nodes and in the case of 16 dB range
extension we can see that the whole hot zone is covered. Comparing the values
in the bingo and random deployment cases it is seen that the bigger the cell is,
i.e. the larger offset is used, the smaller the impact of misplacement is on the
number of UEs connecting to the low power nodes.
The PRB utilization in the macro layer is compiled in table 5.4.
5.3.3
Interference
Figure 5.2 is showing the average interference received by the base stations.
The difference in interference between bingo and random deployment is due
to different number of UEs connecting to the low power nodes. The relation
between number of UEs connecting to the low power node and the interference
is discussed below.
Low power eNB
A decrease in interference to the low power nodes is observed as the offsets gets
larger. This is explained by that a low power node gets the strongest interference
from macro UEs surrounding the cell. The number of UEs in the hot zones is
1 The
UE which are not placed in the hot zones intentionally are randomly distributed
throughout the system area. There is a chance that a UE not chosen to be placed in the hot
zone are placed there anyway. This means that to cover the whole hot zone a low power node
should actually have more than 50 % of the UEs connected to it.
29
Random
Increase Bingo vs. Random
0 dB
8 dB
16 dB
Bingo
5.3. Results
25 %
46 %
59 %
20 %
39 %
56 %
25 %
18 %
5%
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
Macro uplink
PRB utilization
Reference case
Table 5.3: Percentage of UEs connected to the low power nodes.
80 %
65 %
70 %
48 %
54 %
39 %
41 %
Table 5.4: Macro PRB utilization.
the same regardless of the offset abut what differs is the number of UEs which
are absorbed by the low power nodes. In the case without offset, there will be
a large number of surrounding UEs which are connected to the macro eNB and
the interference is -93.6 dBm and -94.1 dBm in the Bingo and Random case
respectively. If an offset is added those surrounding UEs are absorbed by the
low power node and therefore will not interfere to it and in case of a 16 dB
range extension the whole hot zone is covered and the interference is reduced
to -111 dBm and -110 dBm. This effect was earlier explained in section 4.2.1.
Macro eNB
There are two factors affecting the interference to macro eNBs as the offset
changes. The dominant interferers to a macro eNB are the edge UEs in neighboring cells and the UEs connected to low power nodes within its own cell.
By increasing the offsets of a low power node, hence assigning more UEs
to it, there will be more possible interferers to the macro eNB. UEs which
earlier were intra cell UEs have become inter cell UEs when absorbed by
the low power nodes and therefore will interfere with the macro cells.
On the other hand, in neighboring cells edge UEs are absorbed by the low
30
96.3
96.7
102
102
105
104
107
106
108
107
Ref
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
120
130
106
104
109
108
110
111
110
100
104
103
Interference (dBm)
90
93.6
94.1
Interference Received by Base Stations Averages
Low power node
Macro
Macro cell area
Figure 5.2: Interference received by base stations.

power node as well. Those UEs will be closer to their serving eNB and
will transmit with less output power and therefore interfere less.
From the interference reduction we can conclude that the interference added
by the low power node UEs is smaller than the reduction of interference from
the neighboring cells.
It can be seen that the interference from neighboring cells decreases and
compensates for the interference from the low power nodes.
Overall
Summing the interference received by the low power nodes and the macro nodes
shows that it is possible to get lower interference than in the homogeneous
deployment case if the range is extended.
It can be concluded that the interference depends on how many UEs are
handed over to the low power node. If a low power node is misplaced it will
have fewer UEs connecting to it and therefore the interference will be stronger.
The difference in interference between bingo and random deployment is
around 1 dB in all configurations.
5.3.4
SINR
Which modulation scheme (QPSK, 16 QAM or 64 QAM) can be used for a

transmission depends on the SINR level. With high SINR higher modulation
schemes can be used, hence utilizing the bandwidth more efficiently. In this
section the SINR for the UEs is analyzed. The SINR is calculated from equation
5.8.
SIN R =
S
I +N
(5.8)
31
5.3. Results
In figure 5.3 a CDF over the SINR for UEs connected to low power nodes is
shown. When the range is extended the following two things will happen.
1. The average distance from the low power nodes to their UEs will increase
giving an average higher path loss and lower SINR.
2. The interference decreases which will give higher SINR, mainly to the edge
UEs. An explanation to why edge UEs are mostly affected by the uplink
interference reduction is found in section 8.2.3.
For the high percentiles the SINR seems to decrease when using range extension. The reason for this is described in point 1. Worth noting is that the UEs
who were connected to the low power node in the case without range extension
will get higher SINR when range extension is applied due to lower interference.
In the lower percentiles the edge UEs are found. In the case without range
extension the edge UEs are closer to the low power node compared to the cases
with range extension. When the range is extended the edge UEs will have higher
path loss which is reducing the SINR but at the same time range extension
reduced the interference and since the interference reduction is larger than the
higher path loss a higher SINR is achieved. The path loss from the low power
node to its edge will be 8 or 16 dB when the range is extended. At the same
time the interference will in those cases be 10.4 and 17.4 dB lower respectively
resulting in a gain.
Uplink UE SINR Low power node UEs
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
20
10
10
SINR (dB)
20
30
40
Figure 5.3: CDF - average low power node uplink UE SINR.
Macro users
Figure 5.4 shows a CDF over the macro UE SINR. When deploying a low power
node the number of UEs connecting to it will depend on its distance to the macro
32
eNB. A low power node on the edge of the macro cell will absorb more UEs than
a low power node deployed close to the macro eNB. This means that the low
power nodes will, on average, absorb more edge UEs compared to center UEs.
The observed gain in SINR in the low percentiles is not a direct gain but rather
a gain coming from removing edge UEs from the macro cells which therefore
will not be present in the macro SINR CDF.
The higher the offset is the more UEs will be absorbed by the low power
nodes and the bigger gain is seen.
The UEs in the high percentiles are those close to the macro eNB. Those
UEs are not as likely to be absorbed by the low power nodes and will only gain
from lower interference.
Uplink UE SINR Macro UEs
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
Ref
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
10
10
15
SINR (dB)
20
25
30
Figure 5.4: CDF - average macro uplink UE SINR.
All users
A CDF for all UEs average SINR is shown in figure 5.5. The SINR is higher
when the low power nodes are deployed in the center of the hot zones. We
also see that the importance of bingo deployment is also reduced as the offset
increases.
5.3.5
Cell Throughput
In this section the cell throughput is discussed.

Averages
Figure 5.6 shows the average cell throughput. We see the effect of the low power
node offloading the macro cells. In the reference case the served traffic was 5.54
Mbps but when the low power nodes are deployed the served traffic increased
to 5.81 Mbps.
33
5.3. Results
Uplink UE SINR All UEs
1
Ref
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
20
10
10
SINR (dB)
20
30
40
554000
0
581000
0
581000
0
582000
0
582000
0
584000
0
583000
0
Figure 5.5: CDF - average uplink UE SINR including all UEs.

Uplink Cell Throughput Averages
x 10
436000
0
462000
0
316000
0
345000
0
239000
0
244000
0
266000
0
237000
0
344000
0
340000
0
144000
0
119000
0
Throughput (bps)
Ref
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
Low power node
Macro
Macro cell area
Figure 5.6: Average uplink cell throughput per cell.
Low power cell

The location of the hot zones have been chosen randomly in these simulations
which lets us see the effect of having low power nodes both close to and far away
from the macro base station. In figure 5.8 we see a CDF of the throughput for
the low power nodes. The lower part of the CDF represents low power node
cells located close to the macro eNB and are therefore small, see figure 5.7a.
These low power nodes absorb few UEs and therefore will have low throughput.
In the upper part of the CDF are low power nodes located on the macro cell
34
(a) Small low power node cell due to short(b) Large low power node cell due to long
distance to macro eNB.
distance to macro eNB.
Figure 5.7: Different low power node cell sizes depending on distance to macro
node.
edge which therefore are large, see figure 5.7b. Those cells will absorb many
UEs and therefore have high throughput.
Looking at the solid lines, the case without RSRP offset, it is observed that
the difference between random and bingo deployed low power nodes is small
for the low power nodes close to the macro eNB. For low power nodes on the
macro cell edge, on the other hand, there is a bigger difference between the two
cases. A low power node close to the macro eNB is small and few UEs are to
be connected to it. Moving a low power node away from the center of the hot
zone then has small effect. The further the low power node gets from the center
of the macro eNB the more important the deployment is.
There is a turning point where the low power node cell gets big enough to
cover the whole hot zone. If the low power cell covers more than the hot zone
a misplacement is not as critical as it would be with a smaller cell. This is seen
in the upper part of the CDF for 8 dB offset.
Looking at the 16 dB offset case the low power nodes are big enough to cover
the whole hot zones even if they are moved and therefore will not suffer from
low power node misplacement.
Macro cell
As the low power node is increasing in size more UEs are getting assigned
to it and offloaded from the macro eNB. This effect is seen in the macro cell
throughput CDF in figure 5.9. The CDF is an inverted version of the low power
cell throughput CDF.
Overall
The macro cell area throughput is the throughput of the macro cell and its low
power node cell. A CDF for the macro cell area throughput is seen in figure
5.10. What is observed is that no distinct difference is seen between the cases
when the low power node is randomly deployed or bingo deployed within the
hot zone. All cases which have low power nodes deployed are having higher
35
5.3. Results
Uplink Cell Throughput Low power nodes
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
0.5
1.5
2
2.5
3
Throughput (bps)
3.5
4.5
6
x 10
Figure 5.8: CDF - average uplink low power node cell throughput.
Uplink Cell Throughput Macro cells
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1
3
4
Throughput (bps)
6
6
x 10
Figure 5.9: CDF - average uplink macro cell throughput.

macro cell area throughput than the reference case due to the offloading of the
macro eNB, as we saw from the average cell throughput in figure 5.6.
5.3.6
UE Throughput
What is interesting for the users is which throughput they get. The throughput
depends on two parameters; the SINR and the number of PRBs available for
36

Uplink Cell Throughput Macro cell area
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
Ref
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
3.5
4.5
5
5.5
6
Throughput (bps)
6.5
7.5
6
x 10
Figure 5.10: CDF - average uplink macro cell area throughput.
the UEs. In this section the UE throughput is shown.

In figure 5.11 a CDF with the average UE throughput for the low power node
UEs is found. The UEs in the low percentiles are UEs on the edge of the low
power nodes. Those UEs are limited by the SINR and the throughput then
follows the SINR curves. The UEs in the center of the low power node cells
are having high SINR and will instead be limited by the available bandwidth
resources. For the UEs limited by bandwidth no significant gain is obtained by
increased SINR.
Macro users
In figure 5.12 a CDF over the average throughput for macro UEs is found. The
UEs connected to the macro eNBs are both gaining from higher SINR and more
bandwidth resources. It was seen that the SINR increases as the offsets increase
at the same time as the macro eNBs gets offloaded which gives more PRB per
UE to the UEs which remains connected to the macro eNB.
All users
A CDF including all UEs is shown in figure 5.13. Adding low power nodes
increase the throughput and the gain is higher if the low power node is deployed
in the center of the hot zone. The difference between the bingo and random
deployment is smaller when offsets are added. With 0 dB offset the 50 percentile
UE throughput is 3.5 % higher in the bingo case compared to the random case,
while with 16 dB offset this number is 1.2 %. The edge UEs are suffering more
from misplacement and the corresponding numbers are 7.5 % and 1.8 %.
37
5.4. Conclusions
UE throughput Low power node UEs
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
0.5
1
1.5
Throughput (bps)
2.5
6
x 10
Figure 5.11: CDF - average uplink low power node UE throughput.

UE throughput Macro UEs
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
Ref
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
0.5
1
1.5
Throughput (bps)
2.5
6
x 10
5.4
Conclusions
This study aimed to show if the results obtained in simulations with ideal low
power node placement can be generalized and applies to real networks where the
low power node placement is not ideal. The system that has been simulated is
quite extreme when considering the UE distribution where 50 % of the UEs are
located in one hot zone per cell. The reason for this setup is to get distinct results. A more commonly used system setup was earlier simulated without seeing
38

UE throughput All UEs
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
Ref
0 dB Bingo
0 dB Random
8 dB Bingo
8 dB Random
16 dB Bingo
16 dB Random
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
0.5
1
1.5
Throughput (bps)
2.5
6
x 10
Figure 5.13: CDF - average uplink UE throughput including all UEs.
any significant different between the bingo and random deployments meaning
low impact of the placement of low power nodes. In the simulations done in the
rest of this report more commonly seen system setups have been used. We can
then conclude that the results obtained for the simulations can be generalized
and applies to real networks which have a random error in the low power node
placement.
Overall UE SINR gain with perfect deployment compared to random deployment.
More UEs are absorbed by the low power nodes and therefore gets
higher SINR.
The UEs who are not absorbed by the low power nodes are benefiting
from less interference.
Small difference in UE throughput between the bingo and random deployment cases. The more the range of the low power nodes is extended the
less it matters if it is perfectly deployed or not.
The more UEs connecting to the low power nodes the more the macro
eNB gets offloaded resulting in more PRBs per UE in the macro cell.
Deploying a low power node gives higher effect if it is deployed on edge of
a cell.
If it is not easy to find the hotspot center the best thing is to deploy
in a direction away from the serving macro eNB.
A more uniform user experience is achieved with offsets.
5.4. Conclusions
39
Note: Earlier simulations with a less extreme case with lower photzone showed
even less difference between the bingo and random deployments. In a realistic
system where photzone is lower the difference between bingo and random deployment is expected to be even lower.
Chapter 6
Analysis of 3GPP system

configurations
It has been discussed in chapter 4 different interference scenarios that can arise
when adding lower power nodes to cellular systems. To see the effects of low
power node deployment a study has been carried out examining three different
system configurations specified by 3GPP.
This study will show where problems arise and ways of improvement will be
given.
6.1
Simulation details
The details of the simulated systems are described in the coming sections.
6.1.1
Configurations
Configuration 1
Configuration 4a
Configuration 4b
Number of low power nodes

photzone
Reference case
3GPP has in [9] specified a set of configurations which should be considered

when analyzing heterogeneous deployments in LTE, see table 6.1.
0
-
2
0
2
4/15
2
2/3
Table 6.1: 3GPP heterogeneous network deployment configurations.
In the reference case a traditional homogeneous network with only macro

base stations is used for comparison. The configuration 1, 4a and 4b two hot
zones are located at random positions within each macro cell area with a collocated low power node. Within those hot zones a percentage of the users,
41
42
Chapter 6. Analysis of 3GPP system configurations
specified by photzone , are placed while the rest of the users are distributed randomly within the system.
6.1.2
System parameters
The system parameters are the same as in chapter 5.
6.1.3
Traffic model
The traffic model is the same as in chapter 5 with the following parameters.
: 13 UE/s system wide. (0.62 UE/s/Cell)
FTP packet size: 2 MByte
The traffic model will generate the following offered traffic.
Simulation time is 100 seconds during which 1254 UEs was created, i.e. 12.54
UEs / second.
6.1.4
User distribution
In the different configurations photzone , i.e. the clustering factor is changing. As

photzone increases more UEs are placed in the vicinity of the low power nodes and
more UEs are therefore connecting to them. The distribution of UEs between
macro eNB and low power nodes is shown in figure 6.1.
UE distributions
1400
1200
Number of UEs
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Macro UEs
Low power node UEs
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
Figure 6.1: User distribution between macro eNB and low power nodes in configuration 1, 4a and 4b.
43
6.2. Uplink results
6%
94 %
91 %
Configuration 4b
95 %
93 %
Configuration 4a
Configuration 1
UEs in hot zones

UEs connected to LPN
LPN coverage of hot zone
Macro uplink PRB utilization
Macro downlink PRB utilization
Reference case
A compilation of the UE distributions and PRB utilization is shown in table

6.2. First it can be seen that less than half of the area of the hot zone is covered
by the low power node. This means that there are many UEs residing just
outside the low power node cell.1
Note: The UEs not intentionally placed in a hot zone are evenly distributed
through the system area meaning that there is a 7 % chance they will be placed
in the hot zones anyway.2
37
18
49
90
80
%
%
%
%
%
72
34
47
77
57
%
%
%
%
%
Table 6.2: User distribution and macro PRB utilization.
The macro PRB utilization is calculated with equation 5.1. The macro PRB
utilization depends on the number of macro UEs. We see that when the macro
cell is offloaded by the low power nodes the macro PRB utilization goes down.
In the reference case and the low clustered cases the macro PRB utilization
is very high meaning that the PRB per UE ratio will be low. Low throughput
is expected for the macro UEs due to the heavy load. It can be concluded that
it is a need to free resources in the macro eNB.
The macro PRB utilization is lower in downlink compared to uplink. The
output power of the macro eNB is 40 W with means that the output power per
PRB is 0.8 W. Comparing this to 0.2 W which is the output power of the UEs
tells us that the signal in downlink is stronger than in uplink resulting in higher
SINR and higher throughput per PRB in downlink. Since the offered load is the
same for uplink and downlink simulations a higher throughput per PRB results
in lower PRB utilization.
To make a fair comparison between the configurations the PRB utilization
is measured in macro eNBs only.
6.2
Uplink results
In this section the performance for uplink transmissions is discussed. For uplink
transmissions each UE uploads one FTP packet according to the traffic model
in section 6.1.3.
1 This is a potential source of high interference to the low power nodes as described in
chapter 4.
2 The hot zone area is 7 % of the macro cell area.
44
6.2.1
Configuration 1
Configuration 4a
Configuration 4b
Average UE lifetime (s)

Average macro UE lifetime (s)
Average LPN UE lifetime (s)
Finished upload
Finished upload macro
Finished upload LPN
Reference case
The lifetimes, or FTP delays as they also will be referred to, for each configuration are found in table 6.3. The FTP delay is the time taken from that the
UE sends the first data of a packet until it has transmitted the whole packet
and disappear from the system. In the same table the percentage of UEs who
finishes their transmission before the simulation ends are shown.
The numbers in table 6.3 are approximates because the simulator logs the
delay only for UEs which finishes their upload before the simulation time ends.
Therefore the actual delays are expected to be longer than stated in the table.
20.7
20.7
60.4 %
60.4 %
-
17.1
18.4
1.95
63.0 %
61.0 %
97.3 %
11.1
13.5
2.05
78.42 %
74.5 %
97.7 %
5.64
7.42
2.35
93.0 %
93.0 %
97.4%
Table 6.3: FTP upload time.
It is desired to have a uniform user experience in the network. It is found

from table 6.4 that the low percentiles of UEs have very low throughput in
the reference case and in low clustered cases. There is a big difference in UE
lifetimes for the macro and low power node case in the no or lightly clustered
cases. Deploying low power nodes in a system with uniform UE distribution
will benefit only a few users, this might not be desired by the operators.
6.2.2
Cell throughput
In figure 6.2 the average throughput per cell is seen. The difference between the
configurations is the number of UEs gathered around the low power nodes. The
more UEs cluster around the low power nodes the more UEs connect to them
instead of the macro eNBs; hence their traffic will go through the low power
node instead. The low power node is said to offload the macro eNB. We see this
effect by comparing the low power node and the macro throughput where the
low power nodes throughput is increased at the same time as the macro eNBs
throughput decreases when the UEs gather around the low power nodes.
The macro cell area throughput, which is the throughput for the macro cell
together with its two low power nodes throughput, is seen to increase when the
UEs cluster around the low power nodes. This indicates that the system was
congested and by offloading the macro eNB the system gets less congested and
more data can get through.
45
Macro cell area

throughput (Mbps)
Macro cell
throughput (Mbps)
Low power node
throughput (Mbps)
Spectral efficiency
8.6
9.3
(16%)
(26%)
7.4
7.5
7.1
6.1
0.28
0.79
1.6
0.8
0.86
0.93
(8%)
(16%)
(26%)
0.74
5 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
50 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
95 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
Configuration 4b
8.0
(8%)
7.4
Configuration 4a
Reference case
Configuration 1
6.2. Uplink results
0.12
0.53
2.7
0.14
0.28
1.0
(17%)
(130%)
(730%)
0.72
1.4
3.3
(36%)
(160%)
(520%)
7.4
8.7
8.8
(170%)
(220%)
(230%)
740000
610000
0
750000
0
930000
5
4
Low power node
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0
280000
790000
160000
Throughput (bps)
710000
0
0
800000
x 10
860000
10
Table 6.4: Uplink throughput. The numbers in the parentheses are the gains
Macro
Macro cell area

Low power cells
If RSRP cell association is used the UEs will connect to the base station from
which they get the strongest signal from. A macro eNB is in general placed at a
46
high altitude, on a mast or on the top of a building. A low power node, on the
other hand, is located on street level where the signal suffers larger attenuation
compared to the signal from a macro base station. The path loss for low power
nodes is therefore modeled with a larger attenuation factor than a macro eNB.
This affects the size of the low power node cell. The size of the low power node
cell also depends on the distance from the macro base station as seen in figure
6.3. The low power node to the left in the figure is larger than the one to the
right.
60
Path gain (dB)
80
100
120
140
Macro eNB
Low power eNb
160
300
200
100
0
Distance (m)
100
200
300
Figure 6.3: Path loss from one macro eNB and two low power nodes. The cell
borders are marked with vertical lines.
A low power node cell close to a macro eNB is small and will absorb few UEs
while a low power node on the edge of a macro cell will be larger and absorb
more UEs. Figure 6.4 shows a CDF of the cell throughput for the low power
cells. We can see the effect of having low power node cells of different sizes.
In the high percentiles are low power nodes that have absorbed many UEs, i.e.
located on the edge of the macro cell, while those low power nodes in the low
percentiles are those close to the macro eNB. When many UEs are located in
the hot zone, such as in configuration 4b, more UEs are connected to the low
power nodes and the cell throughput increases.
Macro cells
The macro cell throughput, seen in figure 6.5, shows the effect of the low power
nodes offloading different amounts of traffic. Macro cells which are offloaded
much traffic by their low power cells are seen in the low percentiles. Macro cells
with low power nodes close to the macro base stations are not offloaded a lot
and will be having higher throughput and seen in the high percentiles.
Macro cell area throughput
In figure 6.6 the macro cell area throughput is seen. The macro cell area throughput is the sum of the macro cell throughput and the two low power nodes
throughput. It can be observed that in case the UEs are clustering around the
low power nodes the macro cell area throughput is increased, meaning more of
47
6.2. Uplink results

Uplink Cell Throughput Low power nodes
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
0
0
0.5
1.5
2
Throughput (bps)
2.5
3.5
6
x 10
Figure 6.4: CDF - average uplink low power node cell throughput.
Uplink Cell Throughput Macro cells
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
0
3
6
7
Throughput (bps)
10
6
x 10
Figure 6.5: CDF - average uplink macro cell throughput.
the offered traffic gets through the system, this from the offloading of the heavy
loaded macro cell.
When the simulator clusters the UEs it randomly selects UEs which are
placed in the hot zones. Which hot zone the UEs are placed in is choosen
randomly and UEs might end up in a different cell due to the clustering. This
effect is seen in the lower percentiles in figure 6.6 where some cells gets lower
throughput due to that UEs has been moved to other cells.
48

Uplink Cell Throughput Macro cell area
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
4
8
10
Throughput (bps)
12
14
6
x 10
Figure 6.6: CDF - average uplink macro cell area throughput.
6.2.3
Interference
Figure 6.7 is showing the average interference received by the base stations. The
interference is calculated with equation 5.2.
100
91.4
92.6
93.9
97.4
102
97.6
98.7
91
89.8
97.4
Interference (dBm)
90
92.4
110
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
120
130
Low power node
Macro
Macro cell area
Figure 6.7: Time average uplink interference per PRB per cell.
6.2. Uplink results
49
Low power nodes

The major interferer to low power nodes are surrounding macro UEs. For the
low power nodes there are two effects competing.
As the UEs gets handed over to the low power nodes there are going to
be fewer macro UEs and therefore less interference.
The low power nodes are not covering the whole hot zone. This means
that as the UEs cluster in the hot zone more UEs are going to be located
just outside the low power node cells and cause heavy interference.
The fairly stable interference levels between the different cases indicate that
the two effects are more or less cancelling each other.
Macro eNB
The interference received at the macro eNB decreases as the clustering factor,
photzone , increases. Interference to macro eNBs are coming from UEs in neighboring cells and UEs in the own low power node cells. By clustering there will be
more low power node UEs interfering the macro eNB. At the same time there is
also a reduction of interference from the neighboring cells where previous macro
UEs are handed over to the low power node and therefore will interfere less due
to lower transmit power. The created interference to a macro eNB by handing
over UEs to its own low power node is compensated for by the reduction of
interference from neighboring cells.
Macro cell area
In the right part of figure 6.7 the interference averaged over all base stations
is shown. It can be concluded that the interference increases when deploying
low power nodes. The average is higher because of the high interference to low
power nodes.
6.2.4
SINR
Assuming constant noise over time the SINR depends on signal strength and
interference. The signal strength depends on the path loss.
Low power node UEs
The SINR for the UEs connected to the low power nodes is shown in figure 6.8.
It is found that the SINR for the UEs is not deviating a lot as the UEs cluster
to different degrees and for most UEs kept above 5 dB.
Macro UEs
The SINR for the UEs connected to the macro eNBs is shown in figure 6.9. A
gain is seen as the UEs cluster. Partially this is due to the reduced interference
and partially due to that the UEs absorbed by the low power nodes is no longer
included in this CDF. Since the low power cells are bigger when located on the
edge of the macro cell there will be more macro edge UEs absorbed by the low
50

1
0.9
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
5
10
SINR (dB)
15
20
25
Figure 6.8: CDF - average low power node uplink UE SINR.

power nodes. The absorbed UEs are removed from this CDF and we therefore
see a gain of the SINR in the lower end of the figure.
1
0.9
0.8
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
5
10
SINR (dB)
15
20
Figure 6.9: CDF - average macro uplink UE SINR.

Aside from the UEs who are put in the hot zones intentionally, due to the
clustering factor, the UEs will have the same location in all simulations. To
further see that the center UEs are not absorbed a CDF with the distance from
the macro eNBs to their UEs is shown in figure 6.10. We see that the UEs close
to the macro eNB is not handed over while those further away are seen to be
51
6.2. Uplink results

absorbed by the low power nodes.
1
Ref
Conf 4b
0.8
CDF
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Macro eNB to macro UE distance (m)
350
Figure 6.10: CDF - distance from macro eNBs to their macro UEs.
All UEs
A CDF including all UEs is found in figure 6.11. An overall SINR increase is
seen as the UEs cluster around the low power nodes. The gain in 50 percentile
is 0.69 dB, 2.43 dB and 4.67 dB in configuration 1, 4a and 4b respectively.
1
0.9
0.8
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
5
10
15
SINR (dB)
20
25
30
Figure 6.11: CDF - average uplink UE SINR including all UEs.
52
6.2.5
UE Throughput
To get high UE throughput a high SINR is needed at the same time as there has
to be sufficient PRBs available. We have seen that this system is heavy loaded
and we can expect the PRB to UE ratio to become a problem.
Low power node UEs
Figure 6.12 shows a CDF for the throughput of UEs connected to the low power
nodes. In figure 6.8 it was seen that the SINR was almost the same for all
configurations. In the throughput we see a drop of throughput as the low power
nodes cluster, this due to fewer PRBs per UE in the low power node as more
UEs get absorbed.
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
Macro UEs
The macro PRB utilization in the macro eNB, table 6.2, is very high. When
the system is this congested there are not much bandwidth resources available
and the UE throughput is limited by the available PRBs.
When UEs gets handed over to the low power nodes the PRB per UE ratio
increases in the macro cell and the UE gets higher throughput, see figure 6.13.
All UEs
Figure 6.14 shows the CDF for the UE throughput including all UEs in the
system. Comparing the reference case with configuration 1 we see that the gain
is small when adding low power nodes to a system with uniform UE distribution.
53
6.3. Downlink results

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
Figure 6.13: CDF - average uplink macro UE throughput.
UE uplink throughput All UEs

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
Figure 6.14: CDF - average uplink UE throughput including all UEs.
6.3
Downlink results
In this section the performance for downlink performance is discussed. For

downlink transmissions each UE downloads one FTP packet according to the
traffic model in section 6.1.3.
54
6.3.1
Configuration 1
Configuration 4a
Configuration 4b
Average UE lifetime (s)

Average macro UE lifetime (s)
Average LPN UE lifetime (s)
Finished upload
Finished upload macro
Finished upload LPN
Reference case
In table 6.5 are the FTP download times in downlink shown. The figures in
table 6.5 are approximates because the simulator logs the delay only for UEs
which finish their upload. Therefore the actual delays are expected to be longer
than stated in the table.
17.2
17.2
64.4 %
64.4 %
-
13.6
14.6
2.42
71.8 %
71.8 %
97.3 %
7.39
8.55
2.41
85.5 %
85.5 %
96.5 %
3.32
3.88
2.22
95.4 %
95.4 %
96.3%
Table 6.5: FTP download time.
Below, in table 6.6, the downlink throughput has been compiled. In the
reference case it can be seen that the throughput is very low for many UEs.
When low power nodes are introduced the throughput gets somewhat higher,
but only when the UE cluster around the low power nodes a meaningful gain is
seen.
6.3.2
Cell throughput
In figure 6.15 the downlink cell through is shown. The same effects are applying
for downlink as for uplink. The downlink cell throughput is overall higher than
the uplink cell throughput.
Low power nodes
The low power cell throughput in downlink is similar to that of the uplink. See
figure 6.16.
Macro eNBs
Also the macro cell throughput for downlink is similar to the uplink. See figure
6.17.
Macro cell area throughput
It naturally follows that the macro cell area throughput is also similar to that
of uplink. See figure 6.18.
55
Macro cell area

throughput (Mbps)
Macro cell
throughput (Mbps)
Low power node
throughput (Mbps)
Spectral efficiency
9.1
9.5
(15%)
(20%)
7.9
8.0
7.5
6.3
0.27
0.79
1.6
0.86
0.91
0.95
(9%)
(15%)
(20%)
0.79
5 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
50 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
95 % UE
throughput (Mbps)
Configuration 4b
8.6
(9%)
7.9
Configuration 4a
Reference case
Configuration 1
0.14
0.69
5.8
0.19
0.48
1.7
(36%)
(240%)
(1100%)
1.1
2.7
6.1
(60%)
(290%)
(780%)
8.5
11
13
(47%)
(90%)
(120%)
0
910000
790000
0
7
6
5
4
Low power node
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0
270000
790000
160000
Throughput (bps)
630000
750000
800000
x 10
0
860000
Downlink Cell Throughput Averages
10
0
950000
Table 6.6: Downlink throughput. The numbers in the parentheses are the gains
Macro
Macro cell area
Figure 6.15: Average cell throughput.
6.3.3
SINR
SINR in downlink is the signal power the UEs receive from the base station they
are connected to divided by the signal power from other base stations presented
56

Downlink Cell Throughput Low power node cells
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
0
0
0.5
1.5
2
Throughput (bps)
2.5
3.5
6
x 10
Figure 6.16: CDF - average downlink low power node cell throughput.
Downlink Cell Throughput Macro cells
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
0
3
6
7
Throughput (bps)
10
6
x 10
Figure 6.17: CDF - average downlink macro cell throughput.
in dB. In this section the SINR for the low power node UEs and macro UEs are
first shown in separate CDFs and then a CDF containing all UEs.
Low power node UEs
The simulator used can not provide measurements of the downlink interference.
Since the average distance from the base stations to the UEs is the same for the
different configurations so is the average path loss. The SINR then follows from
57

Downlink Cell Throughput Macro cell area
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
4
8
10
Throughput (bps)
12
14
6
x 10
Figure 6.18: CDF - average downlink macro cell area throughput.
the interference.
The SINR for the low power node UEs is seen in figure 6.19. The macro
base station will use strong transmit power in order to reach the edge UEs. The
fewer macro UEs there are the less interference is expected to the low power
node UEs.
Downlink UE SINR Low power node UEs
1
0.9
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
10
10
20
SINR (dB)
30
40
50
Figure 6.19: CDF - average low power node downlink UE SINR.
58
Macro UEs
Also for the macro UEs the average distance, and therefore the path loss, to
the macro eNB is unchanged as the UEs cluster. The SINR for the macro UEs
then depend on their received interference. See figure 6.20.
The interference to macro UEs comes from neighboring cells with their low
power nodes and also the low power nodes in the own cell. As more UEs gets
handed over to the low power nodes the interference to the macro UEs from the
low power nodes increase. At the same time, the interference from neighboring
cells decreases when the low power nodes absorb edge UEs.
From a macro UEs point of view; the strongest interference comes from the
neighboring macro eNB when it communicates with its edge UEs. If the edge
UEs can get absorbed by the low power nodes the heavy interference is reduced.
Explained in figure 6.3 the low power node cells at the edge of the macro cell
are larger than those close to the macro eNB. This means that that there are a
larger proportion of edge UEs that will be absorbed compared to UEs close to
the macro eNB.
Downlink UE SINR Macro UEs
1
0.9
0.8
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
10
10
20
30
SINR (dB)
40
50
60
Figure 6.20: CDF - average macro downlink UE SINR.
All UEs
A CDF for all UEs in the system is seen in figure 6.21. In all cases with low
power nodes has higher SINR compared to the reference case. The gain is small
when the UEs are not clustered but as the UEs cluster more the gain increases.
The gain in 50 percentile is 0.32 dB, 1.45 dB and 4.08 dB in configuration 1, 4a
and 4b respectively.
59

Downlink UE SINR All UEs
1
0.9
0.8
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
10
10
20
30
SINR (dB)
40
50
60
Figure 6.21: CDF - average downlink UE SINR including all UEs.
6.3.4
UE Throughput
Also in downlink the throughput is expected to be limited by the PRB to UE

ratio as more UEs had no SINR problems.
Low power node UEs

A CDF for the low power node UEs throughput is found in figure 6.22. The
throughput is, as discussed, depending on the SINR and the available bandwidth
resources. We know that the number of UEs connecting to the low power nodes
is small and the delays are low, see table 6.2 and 6.5. This implies that there
are few occasions when there are more than one UE connected to a low power
node at one time. The throughput for the low power node UEs therefore follows
from the SINR shown in figure 6.19.
Macro UEs
A CDF for the throughput for the macro UEs is shown in figure 6.23. We
have seen, in figure 6.20, that the downlink SINR is not low in any of the
configurations. For the macro UE throughput there is an apparent problem.
Aside from when the UEs are strongly clustered the UE throughput is low for
many UEs. The low throughput is due to congestions in the macro cell.
All UEs
In figure 6.24 is a CDF including all UEs throughput.
60

UE downlink throughput Low power node UEs
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
Figure 6.22: CDF - average downlink low power node UE throughput.
UE downlink throughput Macro UEs

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
Figure 6.23: CDF - average downlink macro UE throughput.
6.4
Summary
The performance of the system depended on the distribution of the UEs. In

table 6.7 the gains compared to the reference case is compiled.
61
6.5. Conclusions
UE downlink throughput All UEs
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
Configuration 4a
Configuration 4b
Uplink Cell throughput

Downlink Cell throughput
Uplink interference
Uplink SINR
Downlink SINR
Uplink UE throughput
Downlink UE throughput
Configuration 1
Figure 6.24: CDF - average downlink UE throughput including all UEs.
+8 %
+9 %
+3.5 dB
+0.44 dB
+0.34 dB
+63 %
+57 %
+16 %
+15 %
+6 dB
+1.38 dB
+1.46 dB
+200 %
+180 %
+26 %
+20 %
+4,8 dB
+2.77 dB
+4.18 dB
+400 %
+370 %
Table 6.7: Gains from adding low power nodes in the different configurations
6.5
Conclusions
Simulations of the configurations defined by 3GPP in [9] shows that introducing

low power nodes achieves gains in all configurations.
The gain mainly comes from the offloading the heavy loaded macro base stations. The more the UEs are clustering around the low power nodes the higher
gain is seen. In the case when the UEs are uniformly distributed (configuration
1) the low power nodes are not absorbing many UEs and the gain is low (8 %
and 9 % in uplink and downlink respectively). When the UEs are clustering
around the low power nodes the gain increases (26 % and 20 % in uplink and
62
downlink respectively in configuration 4b).

Low power nodes receive strong interference from surrounding macro UEs.
This increase in interference is compensated for by lower path loss and the SINR
is still higher for the low power node UEs compared to macro UEs.
The macro base stations get less interference when more UEs are absorbed by
the low power nodes; -97.6 dBm in configuration 1 and -102 dBm in configuration
4b. This because the interference from UEs on the macro cell edge in neighboring
cells are reduced when the low power nodes absorb them.
We see overall better system performance when low power nodes are added.
As seen in the summary, the gain is relatively small when the UE distribution
is uniform but when more UEs are clustering around the low power nodes the
gain is higher.
Chapter 7

configurations - Low load
In chapter 6 it has been investigated different configurations of heterogeneous
networks. It was investigated how deployment of low power nodes impacts
the performance when the UEs were clustering around the low power nodes to
different degrees under heavy user load. In case of uniform UE distribution the
gain was small.
To further see the value of deploying low power nodes in a network where
the UEs are uniformly distributed another study has been carried out with the
same set up as in chapter 6 but with lower load.
7.1
Simulation details
7.1.1
Configurations
In this study only configuration 1 has been compared to the reference case.
Details are found in section 6.1.1.
7.1.2
System parameters
7.1.3
Traffic model
The traffic model is the same as in chapter 5 with the following parameters:
: 7.77 UEs/s system wide. (0.37 UE/s/Cell)
FTP packet size: 2 MByte
The traffic model will generate the following offered traffic.
63
64 Chapter 7. Analysis of 3GPP system configurations - Low load

UEs / second.
7.1.4
User distribution
Configuration 1 Low load
Reference case High load
Configuration 1 High load
UEs connected to LPN

Macro uplink PRB utilization
Macro downlink PRB utilization
Reference case Low load
The user distribution and the macro PRB utilization is found in table 7.1.
70 %
52 %
6%
65 %
46 %
95 %
93 %
6%
94 %
91 %
Table 7.1: User distribution between macro eNB and low power nodes and
macro PRB utilization.
7.2
Results
In the following section configuration 1 will be compared with the reference

case. The results from the study with the high load traffic model are displayed
in parallel as comparison.
7.2.1
SINR
Uplink
The average uplink UE SINR is seen in figure 7.1 and in table 7.2. Adding low
power nodes gives great gains in SINR for those UEs who connect to them, UEs
which are absorbed by the low power nodes gets a gain of 5.04 dB and 5.45 dB
in the low and high load case respectively. The UEs which are not absorbed by
the low power nodes also get a higher SINR but the gain is lower; 0.31 dB and
0.12 dB in the low and high load case respectively. Averaging the gain over all
UEs gives a gain of 0.59 dB and 0.44 dB.
Downlink
In downlink the SINR gain for the UEs is also small. The average gain in UE
SINR in downlink is 1 dB and 0.34 dB in the low and high load case respectively.
See figure 7.2 and table 7.3.
65
7.2. Results
Uplink UE SINR Averages
14
12.5
13.3
16
7.5
7.06
8.85
8.26
8.57
7.17
7.05
10
8.26
SINR (dB)
12
6
4
Ref Low
C1 Low
Ref High
C1 High
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
All UEs
Configuration 1
Gain
Low load
High load
Reference case
Figure 7.1: Average uplink SINR per UE.
8.26 dB
7.06 dB
8.85 dB
7.50 dB
0.59 dB
0.44 dB
Configuration 1
Gain
Low load
High load
Reference case
Table 7.2: Average uplink SINR per UE.
11.6 dB
7.82 dB
12.6 dB
8.16 dB
1 dB
0.34 dB
Table 7.3: Average downlink SINR per UE.
7.2.2
Cell throughput
One reason for adding low power nodes is to create gains by offloading the
macro eNBs. When the UEs are uniformly distributed high offloading is hard
to achieve.

Downlink UE SINR Averages
11.6
12.6
8.16
7.82
SINR (dB)
10
7.82
9.07
12
8.11
11.6
14
12.5
13.5
16
6
4
Ref Low
C1 Low
Ref High
C1 High
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
All UEs
Figure 7.2: Average downlink SINR per UE.
Uplink
Only six percent of the UEs connected to the low power nodes in configuration
1. This low offloading suggests only a small gain in served traffic. In figure 7.3
and table 7.4 we see that in the simulations there was no gain in the low load
case and 8 percent gain in the high load case. Worth noting is that in the low
load case almost 100 % of the offered traffic is served.
540000
Throughput (bps)
0
800000
580000
7
6
580000
0
740000
750000
x 10
5
4
3
Ref Low
C1 Low
Ref High
C1 High
Low power node
270000
0
190000
Macro
Macro cell area
67
Configuration 1
Gain
Low load
High load
Reference case
7.2. Results
5.8 Mbps
7.4 Mbps
5.8 Mbps
8 Mbps
0%
8%
Table 7.4: Average uplink cell throughput per cell.
Downlink
790000
0
0
580000
540000
580000
Throughput (bps)
x 10
800000
860000
Similar to uplink, the downlink shows a no gain in served traffic in the low load
case while a gain of 9 % when the system is has a high load. See figure 7.4 and
table 7.5. Also in downlink almost all offered traffic is served in the low load
case.
5
4
3
Ref Low
C1 Low
Ref High
C1 High
Low power node
270000
0
180000
Macro
Macro cell area
Figure 7.4: Average downlink cell throughput per cell.
7.2.3
UE Throughput
Uplink
For heavy loaded systems the average UE throughput is low due to congestion.
The low power nodes are only offloading six percent of the UEs but which
still gives a high percentage gain; see figure 7.5 and table 7.6. Even if a high
percentage gain of 63 % is seen in the highly loaded case the macro cells are
still congested and the throughput is low.
We see a gain in UE throughput of 18 % even though there was no gain
in cell throughput in the low load case. This means that all offered traffic is
Configuration 1
Gain
Low load
High load
Reference case
5.8 Mbps
7.9 Mbps
5.8 Mbps
8.6 Mbps
0%
9%
Table 7.5: Average downlink cell throughput per cell.
served in the low load case and deploying low power nodes will only increase
the throughput for the UEs, not the cells.
Uplink UE Throughput Averages
810000
780000
x 10
9
8
340000
340000
0
380000
0
400000
0
140000
0
860000
Ref Low
C1 Low
Ref High
C1 High
100000
860000
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
All UEs
Gain
Low load
High load
Configuration 1
Figure 7.5: Average uplink UE throughput per UE.
Reference case
Throughput (bps)
3.4 Mbps
0.86 Mbps
4.0 Mbps
1.4 Mbps
18 %
63 %
Table 7.6: Average uplink UE throughput per UE.
69
7.3. Conclusions
Downlink
x 10
Downlink UE Throughput Averages
0
690000
7
6
5
0
0
Ref Low
C1 Low
Ref High
C1 High
140000
140000
0
0
220000
0
180000
Throughput (bps)
620000
0
670000
620000
770000
10
950000
The downlink UE throughput, as the uplink UE throughput, gets higher when

adding low power nodes. See figure 7.6 and table 7.7. In case of a heavy loaded
system the percentage gain is high but the offloading is not high enough to give
high throughput for the macro UEs. When the system has a lower load and the
macro cells are less congested the presence of low power nodes are not highly
noticeable.
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
All UEs
Configuration 1
Gain
Low load
High load
Reference case
Figure 7.6: Average downlink UE throughput per UE.
6.2 Mbps
1.4 Mbps
6.9 Mbps
2.2 Mbps
11 %
57 %
Table 7.7: Average downlink UE throughput per UE.
7.3
Conclusions
In this chapter configuration 1 with two low power nodes has been compared
to the reference case. In the previous chapter it was seen that the gain from
introducing low power nodes in a heavy loaded system with uniform UE distribution gave low gain in the system throughput. The gain was low because the

low power node was not able to offload many UEs from the macro cell. The low
power nodes absorbed 6 % of the UEs.
This study has shown that when the system load is lower there is no increase
in served traffic from introducing low power nodes. This is natural because when
the macro cell is not heavy loaded offloading is not necessary.
The UE throughput was also compared and we see that the when the system
load was high the UE throughput was very low in the reference case. By introducing two low power nodes there was a high percentage gain in UE throughput
of 63 % and 57 % in uplink and downlink respectively. This shows that in a
heavy loaded system a small offloading can give a high percentage gain in UE
throughput.
When the system load was lower the UE throughput gain from adding low
power nodes was also lower; 18 % and 11% in uplink and downlink respectively.
Chapter 8

configurations - Range
extension
There is a way to compromise between uplink and downlink performance. If we
want to optimize downlink performance the UEs should be assigned to the base
stations from which the highest power is received (RSRP based cell association).
If uplink performance should be optimized the UEs should be assigned to the
base station to which the path loss is lowest (path loss based cell association).
To compromise between the two extremes the range can be extended by
using RSRP cell association with an offset for the low power nodes. If the
offset is zero the UEs are connecting to the base station which gives highest
received power, i.e. best downlink performance. As the offset is increased a cell
association closer to path loss based cell association is approached.
8.1
Simulation details
8.1.1
Configurations
The configurations simulated is the same as in chapter 6.
8.1.2
System parameters
8.1.3
Traffic model
The traffic model is the same as in chapter 6.

71
Chapter 8. Analysis of 3GPP system configurations - Range

extension
72
8.1.4
User distribution
In the different configurations photzone , i.e. the clustering factor is changed.

As photzone increases more UEs are placed in the hot zones and more UEs are
therefore connecting to the low power nodes. The cell association offset is also
increasing the number of UEs connecting to the low power nodes by extending
the cell range. The distribution of UEs between macro eNBs and low power
nodes is shown in figure 8.1 and table 8.1.
As expected the coverage of the hot zones is increasing with range extension,
from below 50 % to below 100 %.
UE distributions
Number of UEs
1500
1000
500
Macro UEs
Low power node UEs
0
Ref Conf 1 f 1 RE onf 4a 4a RE onf 4b 4b RE

f
f
C
C
Con
Con
Con
Figure 8.1: User distribution between macro eNB and low power nodes in configuration 1, 4a and 4b with and without 8 dB range extension.
8.2
8.2.1
Results
Cell Throughput
When increasing the RSRP offsets both the uplink and downlink macro cell area
throughput increases. This because the heavy loaded macro eNBs gets offloaded
and more data can get through the system. See figure 8.2.
The highest gain in macro cell area throughput is seen in configuration 1, 0.8
Mbps and 0.6 Mbps in cell throughput gain in uplink and downlink respectively.
The reason for the higher gain in configuration 1 compared to configuration 4b
is due to that a high percentage of the offered traffic is served in configuration
4b and an increase is not as easy to achieve as in configuration 1.
8.2.2
Interference
The uplink interference is seen in figure 8.3. As described in section 4.2.1, macro
UEs interfere the low power nodes. The closer the macro UEs are to the low
power nodes the stronger the interference gets. In case the low power node is
close to the macro cell edge the surrounding macro UEs are using high transmit
power to reach the macro eNB and the low power node gets strong interference.
73
0
790000
270000
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0
Low power node
Macro
Macro cell area
Low power node
Macro
0
590000
Macro cell area
(c) Uplink 8 dB offset
0
920000
0
760000
0
300000
360000
5
4
1
0
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0
790000
180000
Throughput (bps)
3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0
810000
790000
960000
0
930000
740000
360000
0
0
300000
180000
x 10
580000
Throughput (bps)
10
720000
9
8
0
880000
x 10
(b) Downlink 0 dB offset

0
(a) Uplink 0 dB offset
10
0
950000
0
910000
790000
Macro cell area
800000
960000
Macro
750000
940000
Low power node
630000
Throughput (bps)
0
790000
280000
3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0
0
860000
0
0
930000
x 10
10
160000
740000
610000
160000
Throughput (bps)
710000
750000
0
800000
x 10
0
860000
10
8.2. Results
Low power node
Macro
Macro cell area
(d) Downlink 8 dB offset
Figure 8.2: Average cell throughput per cell.
Configuration 1 RE
Configuration 4a
Configuration 4a RE
Configuration 4b
Configuration 4b RE
UEs in
hot zones
UEs connected
to LPN
LPN coverage
of hot zones
Macro uplink
PRB utilization
Macro downlink
PRB utilization
Configuration 1

extension
Reference
74
37 %
37 %
72 %
72 %
6%
16 %
18 %
35 %
34 %
61 %
49 %
95 %
47 %
85 %
95 %
94 %
92 %
90 %
78 %
77 %
41 %
93 %
91 %
82 %
80 %
55 %
57 %
24 %
Table 8.1: User distributions and macro PRB utilization.
When the UEs are clustering inside the hot zone more of them are going to be
absorbed by the low power node. As a result there are fewer macro UEs which
can cause interference.
At the same time, when no offset is used the low power cells are not covering
the whole hot zone meaning that there will be many macro UEs surrounding
the low power nodes. In configuration 1 there will be few macro UEs residing
just outside the low power node cell but there will be many macro UEs in total.
In configuration 4a there are fewer macro UEs in total but the number of macro
UEs surrounding the low power nodes is higher. The sum of these two effects
is that the interference is increased. In configuration 4b the number of macro
UEs is even lower and even though there is more surrounding macro UEs the
total interference is lower than in configuration 4a.
The macro UEs surrounding the low power nodes can be absorbed by extending the range of the low power cells so that they cover the whole hot zone.
When the whole hot zone is covered the interference to the low power nodes
gets lower the more UEs are placed in the hot zones. In configuration 1 the
low power nodes receive -96.3 dBm while in configuration 4b the corresponding
number is -102 dBm.
The interference to the macro base stations comes partially from low power
node UEs partially from neighboring cells. The interference from the neighboring cells comes primarily from the macro UEs. As macro UEs gets absorbed
by the low power nodes the interference from the neighboring cell gets lower.
At the same time UEs in the own cell will be handed over to low power nodes
and interference is created. The sum of these two effects is seen to result in less
interference. Naturally, range extension will then reduce the interference to the
macro eNBs.
The downlink interference has not been obtained in these simulations.
75
8.2. Results
91.4
92.6
93.9
97.4
98.7
100
102
97.4
89.8
91
97.6
Interference (dBm)
90
92.4
110
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
120
130
Low power node
Macro
Macro cell area

103
99.4
96.8
97.4
102
106
97.4
98.1
102
96.3
Interference (dBm)
100
98.6
90
110
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
120
130
Low power node
Macro
Macro cell area
(b) Uplink 8 dB offset
76
8.2.3

extension
SINR
The SINR depends on the interference and the received signal power. As fading
has been removed in these simulations the received signal power depends on
distance from the UEs to the serving eNB.
Averages
The average SINR is seen in figure 8.4.
Uplink For the low power nodes, expanding the range leads to a greater average distance to their served UEs. In configuration 1 the SINR is seen to decrease
with 2 dB due to a greater path loss which the decrease in interference does not
compensate for. For the more clustered cases the interference reduction is larger
and the SINR is kept stable.
The average distance from macro eNB to macro UE is not affected by an
extended range which makes the average macro SINR increase as the interference
decrease.
The average SINR for all UEs is seen to increase with 0.41 dB, 1.19 dB
and 1.77 dB in configuration 1, 4a and 4b respectively when range extension is
applied.
Downlink The low power node UEs receives interference when the macro
eNB is transmitting to its UEs. The interference received by the low power
nodes is related to the PRB utilization in the macro cells in table 8.1. High
PRB utilization in the macro cell gives high interference to the low power nodes
and low PRB utilization in the macro cell gives low interference to the low
power nodes. Without range extension, figure 8.4b, the SINR is higher in all
configurations compared to the reference case. Range extension will make the
low power nodes absorb UEs further away from the base station. The range is
extended with 8 dB and therefore the edge UEs will have 8 dB higher path loss
in the range extended case and the low output power of the low power nodes
will not be able to support the edge UEs with high SINR in configuration 1 and
4a, while in configuration 4b the interference is reduced enough to increase the
SINR for the low power node UEs. See figure 8.4d.
For the macro UEs, the SINR is seen to increase for all configurations when
the range is extended. Once again, the average distance from the macro eNB
to the macro UEs is unchanged when the range is extended meaning that the
increase in SINR for the macro UEs is due to interference reduction.
The average SINR is reduced in configuration 1 but increased in configuration 4a and 4b.
Low power node UEs
Uplink In figure 8.5a and figure 8.5c the uplink SINR is shown without range
extension and with 8 dB range extension. In both graphs the lower end of
the CDF are the edge UEs while in the higher end of the graph has the UEs
close to the low power node. Adding an offset, figure 8.5c, will make the low
power node absorb UE which are further away from the base station. The UEs
in the range extended region are having a large distance to the base station
77
8.2. Results
Macro UEs
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
All UEs
9.28
8.16
7.82
12
11.7
9.14
16.1
18.5
10.3
7.82
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
1.87
0
7.77
8.93
11.9
14.7
7.35
10
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
Low power node UEs
SINR (dB)
9.63
7.91
9.55
7.06
7.4
7.05
8.03
10.5
11.6
12.9
15
12.6
15
SINR (dB)
20
All UEs
20
Macro UEs
10
8.11
7.82
10
9.83
All UEs
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
7.82
Low power node UEs
9.07
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
10
8.44
7.5
7.06
8.32
7.59
7.17
7.05
10
12.5
15
SINR (dB)
15
12.8
20
12.5
20
12.5
SINR (dB)
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
Figure 8.4: Average SINR per UE.
All UEs

extension
78
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF
0.9
1
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
5
10
SINR (dB)
15
20
0
10
25

20
SINR (dB)
30
40
50

0.9
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF
10
1
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.8
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
10
SINR (dB)
15
20
25
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.5
0.4
0
5
1
0.9
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0
10
10
20
SINR (dB)
30
40
50
Figure 8.5: CDF - average low power node UE SINR.

meaning lower SINR. In configuration 1 the interference reduction will not be
able to compensate for the further distance while in configuration 4a and 4b the
interference reduction is higher and the SINR increases.
For the UEs close to the low power node, in the upper part of the CDF, the
interference is small compared to the signal power the base station receives and
the interference has low impact on the SINR.
Downlink In downlink we see that in configuration 1 and 4a many UEs are
getting very low SINR when range extension is applied. In configuration 1 the
PRB utilization in downlink is high which gives high interference. In configuration 4b the PRB utilization is lower and the interference is therefore lower.
The high interference, in combination with large UE-to-base station distance
gives low SINR for many UEs in configuration 1. In configuration 4b the interference is reduced enough to compensate for the longer UE to base station
distance.
Looking at the low power node UE SINR curves for uplink and downlink,
figure 8.5a and 8.5b, we see that their shapes differs. In uplink the edge UEs
79
8.2. Results
suffer more from the interference than the center UEs. In downlink all UEs
suffer more or less the same. The explanation for this will be seen in figure
8.6. The signal from the macro base station will be attenuated according to the
green curve. The signal from the macro UE will be attenuated according to the
blue curve.
Path gain (dB)
20
Macro eNB
Macro UE
40
Low power node cell border
60
80
Low power node
100
120
140
300
200
100
0
Distance (m)
100
200
300
Figure 8.6: Path loss from macro eNB and macro UE.
In uplink the interfering signals to the low power nodes comes from surrounding macro UEs. As we can see if figure 8.7 the signal from the macro UE
will affect the low power node UE close to the cell border more than the low
power node UE close to the low power node.
Path gain (dB)
20
40
Macro UE
LPN UE

Low power node
60
80
100
120
140
50
50
100
Distance (m)
150
200
Figure 8.7: Uplink interference from macro layer to low power node layer.
In downlink the interfering signal comes from the macro eNB. As seen in
figure 8.8 the attenuation of the signal is more uniform through the low power
node cell and the UEs are affected more uniformly.
Path gain (dB)
20
40
60
Macro eNB
LPN UE

Low power node
80
100
120
140
250
200
150
100
50
0
Distance (m)
50
100
150
200
Figure 8.8: Downlink interference from macro layer to low power node layer.

extension
80
1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF
0.8
1
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
5
10
SINR (dB)
15
0
10
20
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
50
60
50
60

0.9
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
10
SINR (dB)
15
20
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.5
0.4
0
5
40
1
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
CDF
CDF
0.8
20
30
SINR (dB)
1
0.9
10
0
10
10
20
30
SINR (dB)
40
Figure 8.9: CDF - average macro UE SINR.
Macro UEs
Uplink Comparing the SINR curves for the different configurations in figure
8.9a a gain is seen when the UEs cluster. The gain comes both from lower macro
PRB utilization and that the absorbed UEs are removed from this CDF. When
deploying a low power node on the edge of the macro cell it will be larger the
further away from the macro eNB it is placed, see figure 6.3. This means that
there is more cell edge macro UEs getting absorbed by the low power nodes
than cell center macro UEs which results in the apparent gain in SINR for the
edge macro UEs.
With range extension, in figure 8.9c, the effects described above are simply
getting stronger.
Downlink The same reasoning applies to downlink as for uplink for the macro
SINR. See figure 8.9b and 8.9d
8.2. Results
81
All UEs
In this section the trade off between uplink and downlink performance is seen
when the range is extended.
Uplink It is beneficial for uplink transmission to let the UEs connect to the
closest base station. With range extension this path loss based way of associate
UEs with the base stations is approached and we see a SINR gain in uplink
from figure 8.10a to 8.10c. A reduction of interference which follows from the
lowered PRB utilization in the macro eNB will also contribute to higher SINR.
Downlink For downlink transmission, RSRP cell association is optimal making the UEs connect to the base station from which they get the strongest signal.
By adding offsets the system is deviating from the RSRP cell association and we
would expect reduced SINR in downlink. In figure 8.10d we see that 10 % and
7 % of the UEs have an SINR below zero in configuration 1 and 4a respectively.
Those UEs are the ones in the range extended region of the low power nodes
which has worse downlink condition to the low power nodes compared to the
macro resulting in low SINR.
Fifth percentile UE SINR
This section shows the SINR for the fifth percentile UEs. See figure 8.11.
Uplink When the range is extended the uplink interference decreases for all
configurations. The more the UEs cluster the larger the reduction is. Comparing
the bars to the right in figure 8.11a and 8.11c a significant SINR reduction of 4.06
dB is seen in configuration 1. In configuration 4a and 4b the SINR increases by
0.44 dB and 2.72 dB respectively as a result of lower interference in the system
when the macro PRB utilization is reduced.
Downlink In downlink the SINR is reduced by 3.5 dB and 1.75 dB when the
range is extended in configuration 1 and 4a respectively. This reduction is a
result of very low SINR for the edge low power node UEs which suffered from
high path loss. The interference reduction was not able to compensate for this
reduction. In configuration 4b the interference reduction is much larger and
compensates for the higher path loss.
8.2.4
UE Throughput
Low power node UEs

A CDF for the low power node UE throughput is found in figure 8.12.
Uplink The UE throughput depends on SINR and the number of available
PRBs per UE in a cell. We saw that the low power node uplink SINR was more
or less unchanged for the different configurations but since the low load node
load is higher in configuration 4b the UE throughput is lower compared to the
other configurations. When the range is extended the nodes absorb more UEs
which means heavier load and the UE throughputs decrease. In configuration

extension
82
1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF
0.8
1
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
5
10
15
SINR (dB)
20
25
0
10
30
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
50
60
50
60

0.9
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
10
15
SINR (dB)
20
25
30
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.5
0.4
0
5
40
1
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
CDF
CDF
0.8
20
30
SINR (dB)
1
0.9
10
0
10
10
20
30
SINR (dB)
40
Figure 8.10: CDF - average UE SINR including all UEs.
83
8.2. Results
Downlink UE SINR 5th Percentile
Uplink UE SINR 5th Percentile
11
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
10
5
4
2.85
2.53
2.99
4
SINR (dB)
SINR (dB)
7.18
7.67
7.43
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
Low power node UEs
1.01
0.39
0.195
Macro UEs
All UEs

Downlink UE SINR 5th Percentile
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
10
7.28
9.87
12
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
All UEs
6
8
3.75
0.739
0.195
3.11
0.195
7.5
1.46
0.77
0.694
0.879
0.694
0.627
2.85
2.59
0
0
2
2.44
3.47
3.61
4.49
SINR (dB)
0.851
7.56
SINR (dB)
1.02
Low power node UEs
Uplink UE SINR 5th Percentile
0.408
0.166
0
All UEs
10
0.195
0.88
1.77
1.02
0.783
0.699
1.19
Macro UEs
0.784
0.694
0.722
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
Figure 8.11: 5 percentile SINR.
All UEs

extension
84

1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF

1
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
0
0
14
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF
x 10
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
0
0
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.1
14
6
x 10
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
Figure 8.12: CDF - average low power node UE throughput.
1 the SINR also decreased when the range was extended which will also reduce
the UE throughput.
Downlink Aside from fewer PRBs per UE in the low power nodes when the
range is extended the SINR was also greatly reduced when the range is extended.
This effect is clear when comparing figure 8.12b and 8.12d. In configuration 1
the loss in 50 percentile is 67 % and in configuration 4a 35 %, in configuration
4b the SINR gain is overcoming the higher load and there is no difference in 50
percentile UE throughput.
Macro UEs
A CDF for the macro UE throughput is found in figure 8.13.
Uplink The low UE throughput in the reference case which is seen in figure
8.13a is due to congestions in the macro layer. When the macro eNB is offloaded
by the low power nodes the PRB per UE ratio is increasing giving higher UE
throughput in the macro eNB. See figure 8.13c. When the UEs are uniformly
85
8.2. Results

1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF

1
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
0.5
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
14

10
12
14
6
x 10

1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF
6
8
Throughput (bps)
0.5
0.4
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
x 10
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
0.1
14
6
x 10
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
Figure 8.13: CDF - average macro UE throughput.

distributed, configuration 1, the gain of range extension is 64 %. In configuration
4a and 4b the macro UE throughput gain is 91 % and 100 % respectively.
Downlink The same effect as in uplink also applies to downlink when the
size of the low power node cells is increasing. The downlink UE throughput
gain in 50 percentile from extending the range is 98 %, 152 % and 100 % in
configuration 1, 4a and 4b respectively.
All UEs
A CDF including all UEs in the system is seen in figure 8.14. The gain in the
50 percentile uplink UE throughput is 80 %, 150 % and 91 % in configuration
1, 4a and 4b respectively. The corresponding gain in downlink is 82 %, 93 %
and 48 %.
Fifth percentile UE throughput
This section shows the fifth percentile of UE throughput. Worth noting is that
the correlation between having the lowest SINR and the lowest throughput is

extension
86

1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF
UE uplink throughput All UEs

1
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
0.5
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
14
x 10

10
12
14
6
x 10

1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF
6
8
Throughput (bps)
0.5
0.4
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.3
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.2
0.1
14
6
x 10
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
Figure 8.14: CDF - average UE throughput including all UEs.
12
14
6
x 10
87
8.2. Results
not very strong. Figure 8.15 shows a system map over a system in configuration
4a. A legend to the figure is found in figure 8.16. It is seen that the UEs who
have low SINR not necessary have low throughput and vice versa.
System map: Configuration 4a
800
Blue circle: SINR < 10%

Red triangle: TP < 10%
600
Distance (m)
400
200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Distance (m)
200
400
600
800
Figure 8.15: Example of a system map for configuration 4a.

The fifth percentile UE throughput is found in figure 8.17.
Uplink From the CDF for the low power node UE throughput, figure 8.12, we
see that there is some statistical uncertainty in the low percentiles but what is
clear is that the UE throughput goes down in the low percentiles when the range
is extended. For configuration 1 the increase in load is not as big as for the other
configurations but there is also a drop in SINR which reduces the throughput.
This is also seen when comparing figure 8.17a and 8.17c. The 5 percentile low
power node UE throughput is reduced by 17 % and 19 % in configuration 1 and
4a respectively.
The macro edge UEs will get increased throughput when the range is extended due to offloading of the macro layer.
Downlink Range extension clearly reduced the 5 percentile SINR in downlink

in configuration 1 and 4a. This is also reflected in their throughput comparing
figure 8.17b and 8.17d. The 5 percentile downlink low power node UE throughput is reduced by 84 % and 54 % in configuration 1 and 4a respectively.
As for uplink the macro edge UEs will get higher throughput in downlink
when the macro layer is offloaded.

extension
88
(a) Macro eNB
(b) LPN
(c) Macro UE
(d) LPN UE
(e) Low SINR UE (f) Low throughput UE
Uplink UE Throughput 5th Percentile
370000
0
480000
190000
140000
440000
190000
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
0
290000
150000
370000
140000
360000
140000
470000
1
0.5
0
150000
0
130000
2
1.5
2.5
910000
120000
230000
All UEs
Throughput (bps)
0
250000
0
210000
770000
200000
120000
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
310000
0
310000
2
1.5
All UEs
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
3.5
2.5
0.5
x 10
4.5
Throughput (bps)
3.5
Macro UEs
Downlink UE Throughput 5th Percentile
0
390000
0
390000
170000
0
150000
Low power node UEs
4.5
140000
All UEs
Uplink UE Throughput 5th Percentile
x 10
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
0.5
280000
290000
280000
140000
120000
260000
Macro UEs
400000
Low power node UEs
3
2.5
1.5
120000
Ref
Conf 1
Conf 4a
Conf 4b
140000
1
0.5
100000
2
1.5
Throughput (bps)
890000
Throughput (bps)
3.5
2.5
3.5
x 10
4.5
4.5
Downlink UE Throughput 5th Percentile
280000
x 10
470000
0
480000
Figure 8.16: Legend to figure 8.15.
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
Figure 8.17: 5 percentile UE throughput.
All UEs
89
8.3. Conclusions
8.2.5
Summary
Configuration 4a
Configuration 4b
Avg. uplink cell throughput

Avg. downlink cell throughput
Uplink interference
Avg. uplink SINR
Avg. downlink SINR
Avg. uplink UE throughput
5% uplink UE throughput
Avg. downlink UE throughput
5% downlink UE throughput
Configuration 1
We have seen different gains in different configurations. A summary of the gains

which range extension brings to the system is found in table 8.2.
+10 %
+7.0 %
-2.9 dB
+0.41 dB
-0.39 dB
+71 %
+64 %
+41 %
+95 %
+8.1 %
+3.3 %
-8.0 dB
+1.19 dB
+1.02 dB
+69 %
+230 %
+51 %
+210 %
+3.2 %
+1.1 %
-10 dB
+1.77 dB
+4.1 dB
+44 %
+150 %
+32 %
+82 %
Table 8.2: Gains from 8 dB range extension for the different configurations.
8.3
Conclusions
One reason for deploying low power nodes is to offload the macro layer. To
make the low power nodes absorb more UEs, hence make more efficient use of
the low power nodes, an offset can be added in to them in the cell association
algorithm. In this study we have seen that adding offsets gives different gains
depending on how the UEs are distributed. The highest percentage gain in cell
throughput is seen in configuration 1 where the UEs are uniformly distributed.
Also, the average UE throughput increased with 44 % to 71 % in uplink and 32
% to 51 % in downlink when the range was extended due to more efficient use
of the bandwidth resources.
When the range is extended UEs in the range extended region is forced to
connect to the low power nodes even though they have a better link to the macro
base station. This made the SINR for these UEs to go down and 10 % and 7 %
of the UEs had an SINR below zero in configuration 1 and 4a respectively, even
though the interference in the system is reduced when the range is extended. If
the UEs in the range extended region could be protected from interference by
an intercell interference mechanism their SINR is expected to increase.
Even though there are some UEs suffering from low SINR in some situations
there is an overall gain in UE throughput by extending the range of the low
power nodes in all configurations.
Chapter 9

configurations - Multiple
low power nodes
In chapter 7 the gain from adding two low power nodes to a system with uniform UE distribution was studied. Later in chapter 8 we saw the interference
problems the low power node UEs in the range extended region had. In this
chapter the studies in chapter 7 and 8 will be taken one step further. We will
in this chapter see how adding more low power nodes to the system will affect
the performance. How the deployment of low power nodes affects the spectral
efficiency will be shown and if interference between low power nodes creates
problems.
9.1
Simulation details
9.1.1
Configurations
The following configurations have been compared which complies with configuration 1 defined by 3GPP.
No low power nodes. (Reference case)
2 low power nodes.
2 low power nodes with 8 dB range extension.
4 low power nodes.
6 low power nodes.
91
92
Chapter 9. Analysis of 3GPP system configurations - Multiple

low power nodes
9.1.2
System parameters
9.1.3
Traffic model
The traffic model is the same as in chapter 6.

UEs / second.
9.1.4
User distribution
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
UEs connected
to LPN
Macro uplink
PRB utilization
Macro downlink
PRB utilization
Reference case
In table 9.1 we see the distribution of UEs between the macro and low power
node layer. The number of UEs which connects to the low power nodes increases
linearly with increased number of low power nodes both with and without range
extension. The macro PRB utilization follows from the number of UEs absorbed
by the low power nodes. As the transmit power of the base stations is higher
the PRB utilization is lower in downlink compared to uplink.
6%
16 %
12 %
32 %
18 %
45 %
96 %
95 %
92 %
94 %
81 %
91 %
63 %
93 %
91 %
82 %
87 %
60 %
80 %
40 %
Table 9.1: User distributions and macro PRB utilization.
9.2
9.2.1
Results
Cell Throughput
The cell throughput is found in figure 9.1. Naturally the macro cell throughput
decreases as more low power nodes are deployed which will offload the macro
eNBs. The throughput per low power node does not depend on the number
of low power node, rather the size of the low power node cells. Without range
extension the low power nodes have a throughput of around 0.3 Mbps, with
range extension the low power node cell throughput is around 0.8 Mbps.
When more low power nodes are added the macro cell area throughput
naturally increases. In the case with 6 low power nodes and range extension all
offered traffic is served.
93
6
5
4
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
3
280000
810000
320000
850000
310000
800000
Low power node
Macro
Macro cell area
800000
0
760000
0
790000
0
640000
0
760000
0
520000
0
9
8
7
6
5
4
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
3
2
1
0
Throughput (bps)
x 10
270000
790000
320000
820000
320000
800000
750000
0
720000
0
730000
0
630000
0
720000
0
510000
0
10
790000
0
860000
0
920000
0
920000
0
970000
0
950000
0
100000
00
x 10
Throughput (bps)
10
740000
0
800000
0
880000
0
860000
0
970000
0
910000
0
990000
0
9.2. Results
Low power node
(a) Uplink
Macro
Macro cell area
(b) Downlink
Figure 9.1: Average cell throughput per cell.
The spectral efficiency can be calculated from the macro cell area throughput
and the bandwidth using equation 9.1. Figure 9.2a and 9.2b shows the spectral
efficiency as a function of the number of low power nodes and the results is
quantified in table 9.2.
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
Uplink spectral efficiency

Downlink spectral efficiency
(9.1)
2 LPN
macro cell area throughput

(bit/s/Hz/cell)
available bandwidth
Reference case
Spectral ef f iciency =
0.74
0.79
0.8
0.86
0.88
0.92
0.86
0.92
0.97
0.97
0.91
0.95
0.99
1
Table 9.2: Spectral efficiency vs. number of low power nodes per macro cell
area.
9.2.2
Interference
The uplink interference is seen in figure 9.3. Downlink interference was not
possible to obtain.
Low power nodes
In earlier studies it was seen that the strongest interference to the low power
nodes comes from the surrounding macro UEs. We can here see that the interference decreases as more low power nodes are deployed. We can conclude that
94

low power nodes
Uplink spectral efficiency
Downlink spectral efficiency

1
Spectral efficiency (bit/s/Hz/cell)
Spectral efficiency (bit/s/Hz/cell)
1
0.95
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.75
0.7
0
No RE
8 dB RE
1
2
3
4
5
0.95
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.75
0
(a) Uplink
No RE
8 dB RE
1
2
3
4
5
(b) Downlink
Figure 9.2: Spectral efficiency vs. number of low power nodes per macro cell
area.
97.2
93
97.1
92.9
99.3
93.8
102
93.2
92.1
99
97.2
97.4
98.3
97.8
101
98.7
103
100
102
Interference (dBm)
96.6
90
91.6
110
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
120
130
Low power nodes
Macro nodes
All nodes
(a) Uplink
the inter-low power node interference will not be a problem in heterogeneous

networks.
In chapter 8 we saw that adding an offset to the low power nodes in the cell
association algorithm will drastically reduce uplink interference. This is also
seen in these simulations.
Macro eNBs
The interference to macro eNBs comes, as earlier discussed, from neighboring
cells, especially from their edge UEs. Having the low power nodes absorb UEs
will reduce the interference to the macro base stations. Therefore the interference to the macro base stations is reduced when deploying more low power
nodes and when offsets are added.
9.2. Results
9.2.3
95
SINR
The SINR depends on the interference and the received signal power. As the
fading has been removed in these simulations the received signal power depends
on the distance from the UEs to the serving eNB.
Averages
The average SINR is seen in figure 9.4.
Uplink Without range extension the low power node SINR is stable around
13 dB as more low power nodes are deployed. It was earlier seen that the uplink
interference to the low power nodes was reduced when adding offsets. Even
though the interference is reduced the low power node uplink SINR is reduced
with 3 dB to 1 dB when the range is extended due to higher path loss.
For the macro UEs the average path loss is fixed regardless of the number of
low power nodes or range extension. The average SINR therefore follows from
the interference and is increased 0.1 dB to 0.6 dB without range extension and
0.3 dB to 1.8 dB with 8 dB range extension.
Overall, a gain in uplink SINR is achieved both by using range extension
and adding low power nodes.
Downlink Also in downlink the low power node SINR is stable as more low
power nodes are deployed without range extension.
As earlier seen the downlink SINR for the UEs in the range extended region
of the low power nodes is low due to a weak link to the low power node and
interference from the macro eNB. The average low power node downlink SINR
is reduced by 7.5 dB, 4.7 dB and 1.9 dB with 2, 4 and 6 low power nodes per
macro cell area.
As in uplink, the downlink macro SINR follows from the interference. The
macro UEs which gets the strongest interference are those on the edge of the
macro cell which gets interference from the neighboring macro base station.
When the macro PRB utilization is reduced so is the interference and the SINR
is increased at the same time. The macro downlink SINR gain is 0.3 dB, 0.7 dB
and 1.5 dB without range extension and 1.2 dB, 3.2 dB and 7.2 dB with 8 dB
range extension.
Low power node UEs
Uplink In figure 9.5a we see the low power node UE SINR in uplink. Even
though the interference is reduced when the range is extended the SINR is
decreasing in all configurations due to higher average path loss. Adding low
power nodes reduced the interference as well but the average path loss from
the low power nodes to their UEs remains unchanged which gives higher SINR
when more low power nodes are deployed.
Downlink The low power node SINR in downlink, figure 9.5b, is not changing
when adding low power nodes. It will, however, decrease when extending the
range of the low power nodes because the UEs in the range extended region is

low power nodes
96

18
16
15
16
Low power node UEs
Macro UEs
7.8
8.2
7.8
8.6
9.3
9.4
9.3
11
7.9
7.8
8.1
9
8.5
9.8
9.4
SINR (dB)
1.9
9.2
8.7
9.4
4.7
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
4
2
8
6
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
10
All UEs
12
10
7.1
7.5
7.9
8
7.1
7.2
7.4
7.3
8.1
7.7
8.9
SINR (dB)
10
12
14
10
12
13
12
12
13
13
14
Low power node UEs
(a) Uplink
Macro UEs
All UEs
(b) Downlink
Figure 9.4: Average SINR per UE.
forced to connect to the low power node even though they have better downlink conditions from the macro eNB. This effect was described in chapter 8.
Interesting to see is that the SINR problem for the UEs in the range extended
region is reduced when more low power nodes are deployed, this due to lower
interference when the macro PRB utilization is reduced.
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
1
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
CDF
CDF
0.6
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
5
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
10
SINR (dB)
(a) Uplink
15
20
25
0
20
10
10
20
SINR (dB)
30
40
50
(b) Downlink
Figure 9.5: CDF - average low power node UE SINR.
Macro UEs
Uplink Figure 9.6a shows the CDF for the macro SINR in uplink. There are
two effects which affects the uplink macro SINR. First, the macro UEs gets
higher SINR due to a reduction of interference as the macro PRB utilization is
reduced when low power nodes absorb UEs. The other effect is that the UEs
which are absorbed by the low power nodes will disappear from this CDF and
since the low power nodes mostly absorbs low SINR UEs there is an apparent
gain in SINR in the lower percentiles.
97
9.2. Results
Downlink Figure 9.6b shows the CDF for the macro UE SINR in downlink.
The path loss is unchanged for the different configurations and the CDFs follow
from the interference. We see that the interference is reduced when low power
nodes offloads the macro layer due to lower macro PRB utilization.
0.8
0.7
CDF
0.6
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
CDF
0.9
1
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
0.5
0.5
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
5
10
SINR (dB)
15
(a) Uplink
20
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
0
10
10
20
30
SINR (dB)
40
50
60
(b) Downlink
Figure 9.6: CDF - average macro UE SINR.
9.2.4
UE Throughput
Low power node UEs

A CDF for the low power node UE throughput is seen in figure 9.7.
Uplink In figure 9.7a we see the uplink low power node UE throughput. The
throughput depends on the SINR and the available bandwidth resources. Without range extension the number of available PRB per UE in the low power nodes
is high as well as the SINR. When the range of the low power nodes is extended
there will be fewer available PRBs per UE as well as lower uplink SINR, especially with 2 and 4 low power nodes per macro cell area. The lower SINR
together with fewer available PRBs per low power node UE is the reason for the
lower low power node UE throughput when the range is extended. The average
UE throughput is 8.1, 7.9 and 8.0 Mbps and the reduction is 12 %, 6 % and 4
% due to the 8 dB range extension with 2, 4 and 6 low power nodes per macro
cell area respectively.
Downlink In downlink we also see the effects of the SINR reduction when
adding the offset, see figure 9.7b. The downlink SINR will decrease drastically
when the range of the low power nodes is extended. The reduction of low power
node uplink UE throughput due to range extension is 68 %, 44 % and 23 %
with 2, 4 and 6 low power nodes per macro cell area.
Macro UEs
A CDF for the Macro UE throughput is seen in figure 9.8.

low power nodes
98

1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF

1
0.5
0.4
0.4
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
0.5
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
14
x 10
(a) Uplink
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
(b) Downlink
Figure 9.7: CDF - average low power node UE throughput.
Uplink In the reference case the macro cell is heavy loaded which is also
reflected in the uplink macro UE throughput. When low power nodes are added
the macro cell will be offloaded and macro UE throughput will increase. The
increase in macro UE throughput depends on how many UEs the low power
nodes absorbs. When the range of the low power nodes is increased the number
of absorbed UEs increase and so will the number of available PRBs per macro
UE resulting in higher macro uplink UE throughput.
Downlink Also in downlink the macro UE throughput, figure 9.8b, depends

on the offloading of the macro cells and the same reasoning applies in downlink
as for uplink.

1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF

1
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
(a) Uplink
10
12
0.5
0.4
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
0.3
0.2
0.1
14
6
x 10
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
(b) Downlink
Figure 9.8: CDF - average macro UE throughput.
10
12
14
6
x 10
99
9.3. Summary
All UEs
A CDF for the UE throughput including all UEs in the system is seen in figure
9.9. When more low power nodes are added the system gets more resources
and the UE throughput increases. To make best use of the added resources
the load should be uniformly distributed between the nodes which we have seen
range extension can be a tool in achieving. Even though range extension created
SINR problems for UEs in the range extended region of the low power nodes
the system as a whole benefits both from the 8 dB offset and the added low
power nodes. In table 9.3 the gain in the fiftieth percentile is quantified.
Interesting to see is that the gain in UE throughput per low power node
increases as more low power nodes are deployed both without and without
range extension. Also worth noting is that, when comparing the dashed green
curve with the solid red curve, is that most UEs are better of in a system with
two range extended low power nodes than a system with four low power nodes
without range extension.

1
0.9
0.9
0.8
0.8
0.7
0.7
0.6
0.6
CDF
CDF

1
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
(a) Uplink
10
12
0.5
0.4
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
Ref
2 LPN
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
0.3
0.2
0.1
14
6
x 10
0
0
6
8
Throughput (bps)
10
12
14
6
x 10
(b) Downlink
Figure 9.9: CDF - average UE throughput including all UEs.
9.3
Summary
In table 9.4 the gains in different configurations compared to the reference case
is summarized.
9.4
Conclusions
The system was benefiting from adding low power nodes. Interference between
low power nodes has been shown not to be a problem. The major interference
arises when the macro UEs are communicating with the macro eNB. By offloading the macro cells the interference decreases both to low power nodes and
macro nodes.
Range extension will make the low power nodes absorb more UEs which
will offload the macro cell but at the same time range extension creates SINR
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
Uplink UE
throughput gain
Uplink UE throughput
gain per LPN
Downlink UE
throughput gain
Downlink UE throughput
gain per LPN
2 LPN RE

low power nodes
2 LPN
100
34 %
145 %
89 %
504 %
183 %
957 %
17 %
73 %
22 %
126 %
31 %
159 %
45 %
204 %
161 %
552 %
320 %
900 %
22 %
102 %
40 %
138 %
53 %
150 %
2 LPN RE
4 LPN
4 LPN RE
6 LPN
6 LPN RE
Avg. uplink
cellthroughput
Avg. downlink
cell throughput
Uplink
interference
Avg. uplink
SINR
Avg. downlink
SINR
Avg. uplink
UE throughput
5 % uplink
UE throughput
Avg. downlink
UE throughput
5 % downlink
throughput
2 LPN
Table 9.3: UE throughput gain and UE throughput gain per low power node.
Measured on the fiftieth percentile.
+8.1 %
+19 %
+16 %
+32 %
+23 %
+34 %
+8.9 %
+16 %
+16 %
+23 %
+20 %
+27 %
+4.2 dB
-0.1 dB
+4.3 dB
-2.1 dB
+3.4 dB
-4.8 dB
+0.4 dB
+0.7 dB
+0.9 dB
+2.1 dB
+1.6 dB
+2.9 dB
-0.4 dB
+0 dB
+0.8 dB
+1.5 dB
+1.6 dB
+4.2 dB
+65 %
+180 %
+135 %
+380 %
+220 %
+560 %
+17 %
+92 %
+50 %
+530 %
+160 %
+1230 %
+57 %
+120 %
+115 %
+280 %
+190 %
+420 %
+35 %
+165 %
+86 %
+690 %
+240 %
+1470 %
Table 9.4: Gains from different number of low power nodes without and with 8
dB range extension compared to the reference case.
problems for UEs in the range extended region of the low power nodes, especially
in downlink. Those UEs received a weak signal from the low power nodes and
the interference was strong. By reducing the number of macro UEs the macro
PRB utilization was reduced with lower interference as a result and the SINR
9.4. Conclusions
101
problem became smaller.

Adding low power nodes will not only remove interference it will naturally
also increase the cell throughput and spectral efficiency in the macro cell area
due to more bandwidth resources.
The UE throughput was seen to increase as more low power nodes were
deployed and the UE throughput gain per low power node also increased as
more low power nodes were added. In case of two low power nodes they gave a
UE throughput gain of 17 % and 22 % each in uplink and downlink respectively.
The corresponding numbers for a system with six low power nodes per macro
cell was 31 % and 53 %.
Chapter 10
Conclusions, proposal and

future work
10.1
Conclusions
In this report heterogeneous deployment has been studied in LTE-Advanced.

Low power nodes have been deployed to enhance the performance of the system.
A set of studies has been carried out to see in which situations problems arises.
The main conclusions from the studies are summarized here.
Misplacement study
First, in chapter 5, it was investigated how a misplacement of the low power
nodes affected the performance. The purpose of the study was to see how
much the results seen in simulations with ideal deployment deviated from more
realistic situations where the low power nodes have a random error in their
deployment. It was found that the difference between ideal deployment and
random deployment depended on the size of the low power node cells. If the
range of the low power node cells is extended misplacement will not affect the
system performance significantly. Without range extension a 3.5 % difference
between ideal and random low power node deployment was seen which could
be considered low. The results obtained from simulations with ideal low power
node deployment therefore also apply to more realistic deployments too.
Analysis of 3GPP system configurations
In chapter 6 configuration 1, 4a and 4b from [9] was compared to the case with
only macro base stations. In all configurations the low power nodes brings a
gain to the system compared to the macro-only case. The SINR levels increases
and so does the UE throughput. The UEs which gets absorbed by the low power
nodes naturally gets high throughput and the UEs who remains connected to
the macro eNBs will also get higher throughput since they get higher SINR due
to less interference and more available bandwidth resources.
A higher gain was observed in configuration 4b compared to the other configurations. This because the gain is related to the number of UEs the low
power nodes absorbs and there are more UEs absorbed by the low power nodes
103
104
Chapter 10. Conclusions, proposal and future work
in configuration 4b as the UEs are clustered. In configuration 1 only 6 % of the

UEs connected to the low power nodes and the gain was therefore small.
Even though the low power nodes received strong interference from the surrounding macro UEs the low power node SINR was still higher than the macro
SINR since the low path loss was compensating for the increased interference.
The macro eNB gets less interference when more UEs get absorbed by the low
power nodes due to lower macro PRB utilization.
Analysis of 3GPP system configurations - Low load
In chapter 7 configuration 1 was further analyzed. It was seen in chapter 6
that the gain from deploying low power nodes in a system with uniform UE
distribution was low since the low power nodes only absorbed 6 % of the UEs.
The gain in cell throughput was 8 % and 9 % in uplink and downlink respectively
while the gain in average UE throughput was 63 % and 57 %. The gain in UE
throughput was high because the absorbed UEs had a very high throughput
which increased the average UE throughput.
The same systems were simulated with a low load traffic model as well and
then no gain in cell throughput was seen, this because a system that has a low
load and serves all offered traffic can not gain in macro cell area throughput.
Even though the cell throughput was not increasing there was a gain in average
UE throughput of 18 % and 11 % in uplink and downlink respectively. Again
this gain mostly comes from the few UEs which get absorbed by the low power
nodes while the macro UEs which do not get absorbed do experience a large
gain.
Analysis of 3GPP system configurations - Range extension
In the study in chapter 8 the range of the low power nodes was extended to
further increase the gain brought by the low power nodes. An RSRP offset of
8 dB was used which made the low power nodes absorb more UEs. It was seen
that the more the UEs cluster around the low power nodes the higher gain range
extension gives.
When the range of the low power nodes is extended the interference was
reduced. The interference reduction depended on the number of UEs the low
power nodes absorbed. At the same time range extension forces UEs in the
range extended region to connect to a low power node even though they have
better downlink conditions to the macro base station. These UEs got very low
downlink SINR due to a weak downlink and high interference. In configuration
1 and 4 10 % and 7 % of the UEs had an SINR below zero respectively, while
in configuration 4b the interference was reduced enough to overcome the weak
downlink and the UEs in the range extended region got higher SINR from the
range extension.
Even though the UEs in the range extended region of the low power nodes
had very low SINR, looking the system as a whole it performed better with
range extension in all configurations.
Analysis of 3GPP system configurations - Multiple low power nodes
In the earlier studies it was seen that adding two low power nodes to the system
was increasing the performance of the system. In chapter 9 it was seen how the
10.2. Proposal
105
system performance was affected when adding more low power nodes.
As seen in chapter 8 that the UEs in the range extended region of the
low power nodes had downlink SINR problems, especially when the UEs were
uniformly distributed. In this study we saw that this problem got smaller when
the more low power nodes was added due to lower macro PRB utilization.
Adding low power nodes increased the UE throughput, and interesting to
see was that the UE throughput gain per low power node was higher the more
low power nodes there were.
Interference between low power nodes was not seen to be a problem.
10.2
Proposal
As seen in chapter 8 there is a need to protect the UEs in the range extended
region of the low power node cells. This can be done, for example, with InterCell Interference Coordination (ICIC).
ICIC is a technique where the cells are scheduling their UEs in a way so that
interference is mitigated. There are different ways of doing this. The principle
is to put restriction in the scheduling so that neighboring cells do not schedule
UEs to collide in time and frequency and therefore will not interfere each other.
For an ICIC-scheme to bring gain to the system the avoidance of colliding
UEs has to compensate for the lower trunking efficiency in the system.
If two cells are scheduling UEs in the same PRBs they will collide and get
lower SINR which forces them to use a lower order modulation scheme and
therefore lower throughput. This should be compared to the case when restrictions are put on the UEs so that they can only use a subset of the resources. If
the UEs get higher throughput by using fewer PRBs with less interference, compared to more PRBs with higher interference, the collision should be avoided.
Figure 10.1 shows an example of this. In figure 10.1a no restriction is made
on the scheduling and the transmissions in cell 1 and 2 will collide. If an ICIC
scheme is used the transmissions can be separated so that no collision will occur,
see figure 10.1b. In the case of collision a lower throughput per PRB will be
achieved but the cells will have more PRBs to schedule their UEs on.
10.2.1
Existing ICIC schemes
Below some existing ICIC-schemes are presented which separates the UEs in
frequency. There are also ICIC schemes which separate UEs in time but will
not be discussed here.
Static reuse
In static reuse the frequency bandwidth is divided in to a number of nonoverlapping bands. Each cell is assigned one of these bands. The assignment
of the bands is done in a way so that neighboring cells are not using the same
bands. As in figure 10.2 the red cells can only use the red part of the bandwidth.
10.2.2
Fractional Frequency Reuse
As an alternative to static reuse, in Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) different

areas of the system uses different parts of the bandwidth. Scheduling collisions
106
Cell 1
PRB 1
Cell 2
PRB 2
PRB 1
PRB 2
(a) No ICIC is used and transmissions will collide in frequency.
Cell 1
PRB 1
Cell 2
PRB 2
PRB 1
PRB 2
(b) ICIC is used and collisions will be avoided.
Figure 10.1: Performance evaluation of ICIC schemes.

that would cause heavy interference can be avoided. One FFR setup is shown
in figure 10.3. UEs in the center of a cell can use the whole spectrum while
edge UEs only can use part of the spectrum. The interference from and to edge
UEs is in general strongest. Having different cells schedule their edge UEs on
different frequencies reduces interference.
Allocation order based schemes
In this class of ICIC schemes the scheduler is scheduling the UEs from a starting
PRB index. Different cells start scheduling from different PRB indexes. This
scheme does not have any hard restriction on PRB usage as the static reuse
scheme has. If a base station needs to use all PRBs it will simply continue the
allocation even if that means it will step over another cells offset. An illustration
of this scheme is found in figure 10.4.
Randomized scheme
This is similar to the allocation order based schemes. The difference is that the
offset used by each base station is chosen autonomously in a random manner
by each base station. The base stations will choose a new random offset with
107
10.2. Proposal
Figure 10.2: Static reuse ICIC scheme.
Figure 10.3: Fractional Frequency Reuse ICIC scheme.

a given time interval. The starting offsets will then change over time and the
interference will therefore be averaged over time. The randomized selection of
the starting offsets will take away the need for the base stations to communicate
with each other.
108
#1
#2
#3
Figure 10.4: Allocation order based ICIC scheme.

Schemes based on X2-signalling
The connection between the eNBs can be used for signaling to counter interference. 3GPP have proposed three messages that can be sent. [13] [14]
Uplink High Interference Indication (HII) is a message sent between eNBs
over the X2 interface to help them to avoid uplink collisions. The HII
message is a bitmap representing on which PRBs high interference users
are planned to be scheduled on. High interference users are generally cell
edge UEs. The action which the receiving eNB is going to take is not
standardized but it is beneficial if it is avoiding to schedule cell edge users
on the PRBs which it knows a neighboring cell is going to schedule an
edge user on.
Each eNB is measuring the interference plus noise on each PRB and sending them to the neighboring eNBs in a message called Uplink Overload
Indication (OI). This info can be used for power control so as the interference could be lowered in the uplink.
Relative Narrowband Downlink TX Power (RNTP) is a message containing an estimate of the transmission power a eNB is going to use in coming
PRBs. This message is sent to the neighboring eNBs. The 3GPP standard
has not specified what actions the receiving eNBs should take. One possibility could be to adjust the reuse patterns within the system dynamically
where the eNBs are working together to minimize the number of collisions
in downlink.
10.2.3
Proposed scheme
We have seen that the UEs in the range extended region of the low power nodes
get very low downlink SINR in some situations due to weak downlink conditions
to the low power node and strong interference from the macro node, which is
a problem. To counter this problem the UEs in the range extended region can
be separated in frequency from the macro UEs by aid of an FFR-scheme which
will be proposed in this section.
Through this report the low power nodes have operated in Open Accessmode (OA) where all UEs can connect to all base stations, as opposed to Close
10.2. Proposal
109
Subscriber Group-mode (CSG) where UEs need to be a member of a CSG in

order to connect to it. The details of the proposed scheme will depend on which
mode the low power nodes operate in.
Open Access mode

The proposed FFR scheme is seen in figure 10.5. The UEs in the range extended
region (blue region) get scheduled on blue resources and edge macro UEs (green
region) are scheduled on the green resources. UEs in the center of the macro
and low power node cells can use the whole bandwidth. Alternatively the macro
eNB can schedule UEs on resources in the blue region but with reduced transmit
power.
Center macro/LPN
Edge macro
Edge LPN
Figure 10.5: FFR scheme protecting UEs in range extended region of OA low
power node cells.
Closed Subscriber Group mode

If the low power nodes operate in CSG-mode there might be situations when
non CSG members are located within the low power node cell. These UEs are
expected to give very strong interference to the low power node and should be
separated in frequency from the UEs in the CSG. To achieve this, the previous
scheme can be altered as in Figure 11 6. The UEs in the low power nodes cells
which are not members of the CSG can only be assigned resources in the yellow
region. They are separated from the CSG UEs at the same time as the LPN
edge UEs are separated from the edge UEs of the macro cell.
110
Center macro
Edge macro
CSG Center LPN
CSG Edge LPN
Non-CSG LPN
Figure 10.6: FFR scheme protecting UEs in range extended region of CSG low
power node cells.
Details of the scheme
There is a need to investigate appropriate parameters of this scheme such as the
number of PRBs in each bandwidth region, the size of the center/edge regions
etc. This is a topic of a future study.
10.3
Proposed further studies
To further mitigate interference the following is an alternative Coordinated

Scheduling (CS) scheme between macro and HeNBs that have potential to increase the uplink throughput. As discussed in chapter 4, a macro UE close to a
low power node will create strong interference to the low power node UEs if they
are scheduled on the same PRBs. To avoid that the UEs gets scheduled on the
same resources ICIC could be used. ICIC algorithms can lower the interference
but also reduces the trunking efficiency. If the macro and low power eNB can
communicate and perform CS, the resources can be used more efficiently. CS
requires low latency and high throughput connections between the involved base
stations. HeNBs do not have such connections but instead are connected to the
rest of the network over the internet. An internet connection is not reliable or
fast enough to be used for CS.
An alternative approach is introduced below. In this schedule the HeNB
will not perform the scheduling of its UEs but will only receive their data. The
111
10.4. Alternative technology
macro eNB will perform the scheduling both in the macro cell and HeNB cell
in the following manner:
1. The HeNB UE sends a resource request, not to the HeNB, but to the
macro eNB. The HeNB will recognize that one of its UEs is transmitting
a request and will expect a grant coming from the macro eNB.
2. The macro eNB will schedule the HeNB UE and send a transmission grant
to the UE. The HeNB will overhear the grant and know with which transmission format and on which PRB the UE will transmit.
3. The UE will transmit the data to the HeNB while the macro eNB can
cancel the UEs signal.
There is expected to be gains by having the macro eNBs aware of on which
PRBs the HeNB UEs will use and then avoid scheduling its own UEs in the
same PRBs. At the same time the macro eNB will be aware of how the low
power node UEs signals will look like and there is a possibility for the macro
eNB to cancel out the interference from the HeNB UEs.
A difficulty with this scheme is that the HeNBs needs to receive the grant
in the downlink where it at the same time will transmit to its UEs. Figure 10.7
shows this. The PRB with the grant is next to the PRBs which are used to
downlink transmissions and to create hardware able to do this is challenging
and expensive.
Power
Grant
Downlink data transmission
Frequency
Figure 10.7: Reception of transmission grant and downlink data transmission

simultaneously.
10.4
Alternative technology
As a way of enhancing the performance of the cellular networks Home eNBs are
proposed to be deployed. The Home eNBs are to be deployed by the users in,
for example, their homes or in offices where there is a need for high throughput
and good coverage.
Many of todays UEs have, aside from the common cellular network connection, also Wi-Fi access. The Wi-Fi access can be used to enhance the performance in the same way as a Home eNB. There are a few drawbacks however.
112
When a UE is connected to a Home eNB it will have its own IP address while
when connected to a Wi-Fi access point it will be behind a NAT which makes
it hidden to the network outside the access point. The operator can then not
authenticate the UE preventing it to access services in the cellular network.
To counter this problem the software in the Wi-Fi access points can be modified so that the operators have control over it and have a separate connection
to each of the connected UEs which would solve the authentication problem.
Another drawback is that a handover between the cellular systems to Wi-Fi
cannot be performed. This means that if a user is in their home and connected
to the Wi-Fi access point the connections will terminate if the user moves out of
reach of the access point. If connected to a Home eNB the user would seamlessly
be handed over to the macro eNB if it looses connection to the Home eNB.
There are several benefits with the Wi-Fi approach compared to Home eNBs.
First of all is the economical perspective. A Wi-Fi access point is today very
cheap and they are already widely spread. Instead of buying a Home eNB
owners of a Wi-Fi access point can simply update the software. It is also easier
for a Wi-Fi access point to utilize services such as media servers and printers.
Another benefit with the Wi-Fi access points is the spectrum aspect. The
spectrum used by Wi-Fi access points is unlicensed and the operators do not
need to pay for the spectrum at the same time the UEs connected to Wi-Fi
will not interfere with the UEs connected to the cellular network. A drawback
from using unlicensed spectrum is that the operators have no control over the
spectrum and no guarantees can be given to the users. That no guarantees can
be given is also true for Home eNBs since the users are deploying them but since
they will operate in spectrum that the operator owns the operator has a higher
level of control.
Bibliography
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Technical Journal, 27:379423, 1948.
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[4] Erik Dahlman, Stefan Parkvall, Johan Skold, and Per Beming. 3G Evolution: HSPA and LTE for mobile broadband. Elsevier Ltd., first edition,
2007.
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Analysis of Interference and Performance

in Heterogeneously Deployed LTE systems

Master of Science Thesis

Analysis of Interference and Performance

Master of Science Thesis performed at

KTH School of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)

3 Fourth Generation cellular networks

4 New interference scenarios in Heterogeneous Networks

5 Impact of misplacement of low power nodes

6 Analysis of 3GPP system configurations

7 Analysis of 3GPP system configurations

9 Analysis of 3GPP system configurations - Multiple low power

Cell spectral efficiency requirements in IMT-Advanced. . . . . . .

3GPP heterogeneous network deployment configurations. . . . .

User distribution between macro eNB and low power

User distributions and macro PRB utilization. . . . . . . . . . . .

User distributions and macro PRB utilization. . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Interference between two terminals TA and TB . . . . . . . . . . .

Representation of bandwidth resources

Heterogeneous deployment example. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Distribution of UEs between macro and low power nodes. . . . .

User distribution between macro eNB and low power nodes in

CDF - average low power node uplink UE SINR. . . . . . .

User distribution between macro eNB and low power nodes in

uplink SINR per UE. . . . . . . .

Average cell throughput per cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Performance evaluation of ICIC schemes. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Advanced Mobile Phone System

Coordinated Beam Forming

Coordinated Multipoint transmission and reception

Closed Subscriber Group

Closed Subscriber Group

Frequency-Division Multiple Access

Fractional Frequency Reuse

Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request

Home E-UTRAN Node B

High Interference Indication

Inter-cell Interference Coordination

International Telecommunication Union

Long Term Evolution

Long Term Evolution-Advanced

Network Address Translation

Nordic Mobile Telephone

Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing

Physical Resource Block

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

Quadrature Phase-Shift Keying

Relative Narrowband Downlink TX Power

Reference Signal Received Power

Successive Interference Cancellation

Time-Division Multiple Access

Transmission Time Interval

Universal Mobile Telecommunications System

Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access

The wireless system

The bandwidth used in radio communication is a scarce commodity and as the

This report has the following structure.

1.3. Thesis outline

In chapter 2 a background to what interference is and how it arises will be

If a transmitter TA transmits a signal to its desired receiver RA , at the same

Figure 2.1: Interference between two terminals TA and TB .

Chapter 2. What is interference?

2.3. Beam forming