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ICT Express xxx (xxxx) xxx
www.elsevier.com/locate/icte

A novel low complexity beamforming scheme for coordinated multipoint

networks
Sandeep Gulia ∗, Anwar Ahmad
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
Received 17 January 2021; received in revised form 19 August 2021; accepted 21 August 2021
Available online xxxx

Abstract
This article presents a quick overview of conventional precoding and beamforming techniques in the cellular networks and proposes a
novel coordinated beamforming technique for coordinated multipoint (CoMP) networks, which is based upon signal-to-leakage-plus-noise
ratio (SLNR) metric. The proposed scheme has reduced computational cost and offers improved performance compared to the conventional
multi-cell precoding schemes in the noise-dominated environments. Simulation results reveal that proposed scheme offers a spectrally efficient,
low complexity solution with improved average user throughput and sum rate in the CoMP enabled networks.
⃝c 2021 The Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences (KICS). Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access
article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords: Coordinated beamforming; SLNR; Inter-cell interference; CoMP; Precoding

1. Introduction The CoMP was introduced as a novel solution that can

Inter-cell interference is ostensibly a major bottleneck that
adversely affects the performance of cellular mobile users
specifically at the cell-edges. There are several categories of
techniques that have been developed to contain the inter-cell
interference. These techniques may be applied at transmitter
side, receiver side or both. However, techniques implemented
at transmitter side are usually preferred to circumvent com-
plexity at the user equipment (UE) [1]. The widely used
techniques in modern cellular networks to mitigate interfer-
ence implemented at network side are inter-cell interference
coordination (ICIC) [2] with variants such as enhanced ICIC
(eICIC) [3], further enhanced ICIC (feICIC) [4] etc. These
schemes improve the cell-edge performance by partitioning
and management of resources in power, frequency and time
domains. Nevertheless, since resources are segregated between
center and cell edge users in these techniques, they suffer in
terms of spectral efficiency and cell throughput [2]. Further,
due to quasi-static nature of these schemes, these schemes
are inefficient to cope with aggressive inter-cell interference
in challenging radio environments.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sandeepgulia@gmail.com (S. Gulia),
aahmad4@jmi.ac.in (A. Ahmad).
Peer review under responsibility of The Korean Institute of Communica-
tions and Information Sciences (KICS).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icte.2021.08.020
2405-9595/⃝ c 2021 The Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences (KICS). Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access
article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
mitigate or even exploit inter-cell interference into a construc-
tive useful signal. Initially, CoMP was implemented for fourth
generation (4G) networks, but recently has been incorporated
as one of the fifth generation (5G) component technologies [5].
It is envisaged as a promising technology and key enabler
in the foreseeable future to combat interference in dense
cellular network employing aggressive frequency reuse. Fur-
ther, CoMP is anticipated to play a cardinal role in scenarios
where network reliability, coverage imbalance and cell edge
throughput are prime concerns [6,7]. Fundamentally, CoMP is
a base station coordination technique that deals with inter-cell
interference differently than the conventional interference mit-
igation schemes. It is a dynamic approach that enables rapid
cell cooperation and exploits spatial diversity to diminish the
impact of signal fading. CoMP allows a set of neighbor cells,
termed cluster, to cooperatively transmit data to target UEs
with fast information exchange. CoMP is essentially a set of
techniques broadly categorized into three foremost schemes —
joint transmission CoMP (JT-CoMP), dynamic point selection
CoMP (DPS-CoMP) and coordinated scheduling/beamforming
CoMP (CS/CBF-CoMP) [8]. First two techniques jointly pro-
cess both user data and control information of co-scheduled
users simultaneously in a cluster whereas latter only processes
the coordination information jointly with other cluster cells.
Fig. 1 illustrates the principle mechanisms of three CoMP

Please cite this article as: S. Gulia and A. Ahmad, A novel low complexity beamforming scheme for coordinated multipoint networks, ICT Express (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icte.2021.08.020.
S. Gulia and A. Ahmad
Fig. 1. Illustration of coordinated multipoint in three-cell cluster scenario: (a) JT-CoMP (b) DPS-CoMP (c) CS/CBF-CoMP.
schemes. Fig. 1(a) describes the JT-CoMP process where three
cell-edge users UE1 , UE2 and UE3 positioned in the adjacent
sectors of eNB1 , eNB2 and eNB 3 respectively are being served
simultaneously by all eNBs in order to increase their signal
strength. The evolved Node B (eNBs) are connected via high
capacity backhaul links to a central entity, referred to as CoMP
coordination unit (CCU), which is responsible for overall
coordination and control. Note that in CoMP frameworks, a
base station is referred to as a transmission point (TP) and
each cell (or sector) of an eNB site may contain one or more
TPs [8]. However, for the sake of simplicity, we consider TP
and eNB equivalent in this article. Under non-coordination
condition, each UE would experience strong interference from
neighbor eNBs. However, with base station coordination using
JT-CoMP scheme, the interference is harnessed by utilizing it
as a beneficial signal. The UEs estimate and feedback local
channel state information (CSI) to their serving eNBs, which
is forwarded to CCU by each eNB. The CCU computes a
global CSI by using local CSI and shares it among all eNBs
concurrently. The eNBs exploit global CSI to design precoding
matrices for their associated users and thereby schedule radio
resources in coordination with other cluster cells. Since JT al-
lows multiple cells to transmit simultaneously to a mobile user
in the same frequency resource block, as shown in Fig. 1(a),
the signal quality and hence signal-to-interference-plus noise
ratio (SINR) of cell-edge users is improved. This eventually
results in the enhanced cell-edge throughput performance in
JT-CoMP [9,10], providing a consistent and ubiquitous user
experience.
In the DPS process shown in Fig. 1(b), the serving cell of a
mobile user is switched dynamically among the coordination
cells to provide strongest signal to the UE. DPS processes
both data and CSI jointly similar to JT but allows only a
single eNB to transmit to an intended UE at a certain time
instant as indicated. Each UE can be scheduled on a subframe
basis to receive intended signal from different serving points
depending upon the instantaneous channel conditions. Since a
mobile user switches dynamically to best eNB based upon the
varying channel parameters, overall signal quality is improved.
In case of CS/CBF, demonstrated in Fig. 1(c), all cluster
cells coordinate to perform scheduling and beamforming de-
cisions, however, joint processing of data is not performed.
Hence, data bursts of a mobile user are not available at all
base stations simultaneously; instead CCU exchanges user data
separately with each eNB. However, CCU shares global CSI
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ICT Express xxx (xxxx) xxx
with all cells concurrently, enabling coordinated beamform-
ing among cluster cells to nullify inter-cell interference. The
coordinating cells generate narrow antenna beams pointing
towards target UEs while silencing their beams in the direction
of unintended users. For instance, eNB1 , eNB2 and eNB3
steer their beams towards intended users UE1 , UE2 and UE3
respectively while muting their beams towards victim UEs.
Additionally, time–frequency resources are scheduled by each
eNB such that no two or more cells transmit in the same
frequency resource in vicinity within the cooperation region.
For example, eNB1 employs frequency resource f1 to generate
beam towards UE1 while eNB2 and eNB3 use resources f2
and f3 for UE2 and UE3 respectively. As a result, cross-cell
interference is suppressed and the received signal quality of
interference prone UEs at cell-edges is improved.
In general, JT and DPS schemes provide higher throughput
gains than CS/CBF but are delay sensitive requiring tight
synchronization, high capacity backhaul and accurate CSI [11–
13]. Conversely, CS/CBF has less stringent requirements for
synchronization and backhaul capacity, however, offers low
throughput gains comparatively.
There are several conventional single-cell precoding and
beamforming schemes that have been extended for multi-
cell coordination and CoMP schemes. However, conventional
beamforming schemes are not efficient for CoMP scenarios
and have several downsides. In this article, we first present a
brief overview of existing precoding schemes and then present
an efficient low complexity precoding scheme for CS/CBF-
CoMP networks that improves user throughput and sum rate
capacity.
2. Conventional precoding and related work
The optimal design of precoding and beamforming algo-
rithms in the cellular systems is a formidable task owing
to the intricate interference scenarios. The fundamental ap-
proach in single-cell transmission has been to boost signal
power at each UE relative to the background noise. This
technique aims to maximize signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and
is referred to as maximum ratio transmission (MRT) [14].
Since this scheme does not take into consider the interference
from other users, performance jeopardizes severely in harsh
interference environments. A reverse but appealing subopti-
mal approach for single antenna multi-user multiple-input–
multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems, known as zero forcing
S. Gulia and A. Ahmad
(ZF) [15], aims to completely cancel the interference but
does not account noise factor in beamforming design process.
Zero-forcing beamforming (ZFBF) is a channel inversion and
relatively low complexity approach wherein data streams are
precoded such that each stream is orthogonal to all other
streams, entirely canceling the interference from other spatial
channels. However, due to exclusion of noise element in the
precoding process, ZF performance gains vanish quickly in
low SNR regimes [16].
Intuitively, considering the pros and cons of above two
approaches, an explicit choice is SINR based approach that
accounts for both the aspects. Since, SINR parameter is more
significant than SNR in cellular environments, goal of this
approach should be to design optimal beamforming weights to
achieve maximized SINR. In [17], authors suggest an optimal
SINR metric based beamforming scheme that aims to perform
mid-way of MRT and ZF schemes. However, due to the cou-
pled nature of the optimization problem, SINR metric based
approaches require iterative solutions that lead to high com-
putational complexity [18]. An extended ZF technique, called
regularized zero forcing (R-ZF) [19] or alternatively termed
as minimum mean square error (MMSE) [20], is a heuristic
approach designed to cancel the co-channel interference in
MU-MIMO systems. While ZF efforts in full cancellation of
inter-symbol interference at the expense of noise enhance-
ment, MMSE precoder balances the multiuser interference
and allows a small amount of interference to minimize total
error [21]. Block diagonalization (BD) is another well-known
precoding scheme wherein UEs can be equipped with multi-
ple antennas [22,23]. BD based algorithms are essentially an
extension of channel inversion schemes, which abolish inter-
user interference and not the inter-stream interference that
originates from the multiple antennas of a single user. In BD
approach, diagonalization of user channels is implemented in
blocks of antennas, while allowing interference within the
streams of the same user. However, since the elimination
of multi-user interference is achieved at the cost of noise
enhancement, BD too performs poorly in low SNR regions.
Even though the sum rate improves marginally compared to
ZF in this scheme, it does not grow linearly with increasing
SNR [24]. In [25], authors present a regularized block diago-
nalization (RBD) approach that improves maximized sum-rate
capacity in noise dominated and high multi-user interference
scenarios.
The aforementioned linear precoding techniques decouple
the optimization problem, thereby reducing the overall com-
putational complexity. However, one major drawback of the
linear precoding techniques is that they pose restriction on
number of antennas wherein number of base station transmit
antennas should be larger than the sum of UE receive antennas.
Further, undesired amplification of background noise in these
schemes leads to performance loss, particularly in the low
SNR regimes. Several non-linear precoding techniques such
as dirty paper coding (DPC) [26] and Tomlinson–Harashima
precoding (THP) [27] provide superior performance than lin-
ear techniques theoretically; their practical implementation is
prohibitively complex.
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ICT Express xxx (xxxx) xxx
In multi-cell cooperation scenarios, several works have
extended the single-cell linear precoding approaches. Base
station coordination was initially proposed in [28] to enhance
downlink capacity. Different coordination approaches have
been developed to mitigate inter-cell interference in MU-
MIMO cellular networks [29,30]. The network coordinated
beamforming with ZF as extended approach has been consid-
ered in [31–33]. Multi-cell block diagonalization is proposed
in [34], wherein authors design a multi-cell BD precoder to
maximize weighted sum-rate subject to per base station power
constraints. In [35], authors employ uplink–downlink duality
and develop an iterative algorithm to design joint optimal
beamforming for minimizing the weighted transmit power
subject to SINR constraints. More recent related work for
5G massive MIMO networks are presented in [36,37]. CoMP
consisting of different multi-cell cooperation strategies was
first introduced in Release-11 [8] by third generation part-
nership project (3GPP) for the long term evolution-advanced
(LTE-A) networks with several enhancements in subsequent
releases [5,38]. The CoMP has been applied in several works
to improve the spectral and energy efficiency in 5G sys-
tems [39–41]. Recently, more advanced beamforming tech-
niques such as hybrid beamforming have gained attention
that leverage benefits of both analog and digital beamforming
techniques. These schemes find applications in 5G millimeter
waves (mmWave) massive-MIMO systems due to their low
power consumption [42]. The application of enlarged MIMO
configurations using massive-MIMO approach has been re-
garded as an alternative to JT-CoMP [6]. The authors in [6]
propose an efficient and smart combination of small cells, JT-
CoMP and massive-MIMO to improve the spectral efficiency
with tolerable complexity levels. It is suggested by authors
that combined framework of JT CoMP and massive MIMO is
more advantageous since increased number of antennas leads
to improvement in robustness of communication links, reduced
backhaul overhead, and increased localization of interference.
A unique precoding solution based on the SLNR criterion
was introduced in [43] for single-cell MU-MIMO systems
where authors transform coupled optimization problem into
a decoupled closed-form solution. In this leakage-based ap-
proach, the computational intricacy is significantly reduced
owing to the dissociated nature of the optimization prob-
lem. The authors establish that SLNR metric based multi-user
beamforming solutions can achieve substantial performance
gain over multi-user zero-forcing beamforming. The advan-
tages offered by SLNR based approaches are two-fold. First,
they remove antenna configuration limitations of the channel
inversion schemes. Second, impact of noise is also taken
into consideration in the design process of beamforming co-
efficients, thereby improving the performance in noise —
dominated environments. The concept of SLNR has been
employed for MU-MIMO systems in several works [44–46].
In [47], authors present a hybrid precoding algorithm for
multiuser massive-MIMO systems by using R-ZF as the digital
baseband precoder that maximizes the SLNR. A digital pre-
coder is designed in [48] to maximize the conditional average
SLNR, which is utilized to construct a two stage beamformer
for downlink multiuser massive-MIMO systems.
S. Gulia and A. Ahmad ICT Express xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 2. Illustration of leakage to unintended users in SLNR.

Fig. 3. General system model.

3. Proposed scheme
The SLNR of a cell user is expressed as the ratio of The first term in Eq. (1) represents the product of desired
intended signal power of the user to the aggregate of leakage signal quantities where Hk,l c
∈ C Nr ×Nt , Wk,lc
∈ C Nt ×Nl and
power caused by the intended signal to all other users in the c
xk,l ∈ C Nl ×1
denote complex channel matrix, global precoding
cell. The leakage is defined as the interference caused by
matrix and the received signal vector from serving cell l in
the signal intended for a desired UE on all remaining UEs
the cth cluster corresponding to the{ intended user k. With
as illustrated in Fig. 2. The traditional SINR based models
no loss of generality, we assume E |xl |2 = 1 where E{·}
}
consider the interference suffered by the intended UE. In con- c
trast, SLNR based model considers the interference caused by denotes the statistical expectation operator.Hk,l takes the form
T T T T 1×Nt
intended UE. In the SLNR approach, the achievable sum rates H = [h 1 h 2 · · · h K ] where h k ∈ C is the channel from all
can be improved by designing tractable optimal beamforming the base stations to the kth user in the cluster. The second term
coefficients such that SLNR of all users is maximized simul- corresponds to the inter-user interference experienced by user
taneously by minimizing the leakage elements. This allows k within the serving cell l. The third term represents aggregate
decoupling of the joint optimization problem offering closed- of inter-cluster interference (i.e. the inter-cell interference from
form solutions. The optimization problem in this case concerns the clusters other than the cth cluster) intercepted by user k.
with the total leakage power caused by a specific user to all The last term n k ∈ C Nr ×1 denotes additive white Gaussian
other users rather than the total interference power of all other noise (AWGN) vector having elements with distribution CN
users on that specific user. (0, σ 2 ), where N{·} denotes normal distribution.
The SINR for received signal in Eq. (1) can be expressed
3.1. General beamforming equations as
c c 2
∥Hk,l Wk,l ∥
Consider a cellular system as shown in Fig. 3, divided c
S I N Rk,l = ∑K ∑C ∑ L ′ ∑ K ′ ′ ′
(2)
′ W p ′ ,l ′ ∥ + σ
c c 2 c c 2 2
p=1 ∥Hk,l Wk,l ∥ + c′ =1, l ′ =1 p ′ =1 ∥Hk,l
into C disjoint static clusters using CS/CBF-CoMP scheme p̸=k c ′ ̸ =c

wherein radio resources of all cluster cells are assumed to be As evident from Eqs. (1) and (2), multi-user interference
scheduled in coordination as described in Fig. 1(c). Assume L from other cell users within the same cluster (cth cluster)
number of cells per cluster with K number of active users per is absent due to the coordinated scheduling/beamforming of
cell. The lth cell transmitter, l ∈ {1, 2, . . . , L}, is considered resources. Therefore, multi-user interference for a user in
to transmit Nl layers over Nt antennas to the kth UE receiver CS/CBF scheme relies merely on other users within the same
with Nr antennas. Consider user k being served in cell l of cell rather than other cell users of the cluster. The intra-cell
cluster c, where k ∈ {1, 2, . . . , K} and c ∈ {1, 2, . . . , C}. As multi-user interference can be completely suppressed by ap-
discussed in Section 1, each cell in CS/CBF scheme serves
propriate precoding scheme and hence second term in (1) can
its associated users only and cooperatively schedules radio
be reduced to zero. Furthermore, neglecting the inter-cluster
resources to alleviate inter-cell interference within the cluster.
interference, Eqs. (1) and (2) respectively reduce to
Consequently, multi-user interference from other cells within
the cluster is non-existent. However, multi-user interference c c c c
yk,l = Hk,l Wk,l xk,l + n k (3)
within a single cell still may exist. Accordingly, the received c c 2
c ∥Hk,l Wk,l ∥
signal vector, yk,l ∈ C Nr ×1 can be expressed as c
S I N Rk,l = (4)
∑K σ2
c c c c c c
yk,l = Hk,l Wk,l xk,l + Hk,l W p,l x cp,l It can be observed from Eqs. (3) and (4) that CS/CBF-CoMP
p=1
p̸=k
technique can significantly improve the signal quality of cell
C ∑
L ′ K ′ (1) edge-users. The achievable user rate for kth user in CS/CBF
∑ ′ ∑ ′ ′
+ c
Hk,l ′ W pc′ ,l ′ x cp′ ,l ′ + n k is given by
c′ =1, l ′ =1 p ′ =1
( )
c ′ ̸ =c Rk,l = log2 1 + Υk,l (5)
4
S. Gulia and A. Ahmad ICT Express xxx (xxxx) xxx

where Υk,l is designated as the SINR of the kth user located where L is cluster size and H p,i,l denotes channel matrix
in lth cell as defined by Eqs. (2) and (4). Further, since each between lth cell and the pth user located in ith cell. Wk,l is
cell serves its own users in the CS/CBF scheme, the sum rate the precoding matrix for kth user corresponding to the cell l.
of lth cell in the cluster can be defined as Therefore, the beamforming weights Wk , l , k ∈ {1, 2, . . . , K}
K
∑ { } for each user in Eqs. (9) and (10) should be designed optimally
R S,l = log2 (1 + Υk,l ) (6) to maximize SLNR. The sum rate in coordinated beamforming
k=1 schemes can be maximized by finding the global beamforming
The average sum rate of a cluster with size L and K active weights such that cross-cell interference within the cluster is
users per cell is given as nullified [35]. Hence, we formulate optimization problem as
opt
the evaluation of optimal precoding weights (Wl ), l ∈ {1, 2,
L ∑
K
∑ { } . . . , L} to achieve maximized sum rate
RS = E log2 (1 + Υk,l ) (7)
l=1 k=1 opt opt opt
(W1 , W2 , . . . .., W L ) = arg max (R S ) (11)
The SINR defined by Eq. (2) can be utilized as an optimization opt opt
(W1 ,W2 ,...,W L )
opt

criterion for designing appropriate beamforming weight (Wl )

for each kth user (k = 1, 2,. . . , K) to maximize the SINR where R S is sum rate over L cells in the cluster given
of each user. However, this leads to intractable non-convex by Eq. (6). Also, without loss of generality we assume,
optimization problem with K number of coupled variables. In opt
∥Wl ∥2 = 1. For simplicity, considering only two cells in
case of zero-forcing scheme, the coupled problem is avoided, the cluster (i.e. L = 2), Eq. (10) can be redefined as
wherein beamforming weight of each user is selected such that
inter-user interference to unintended user i is enforced to zero opt
(Waopt , Wb ) = arg max (R S,a + R S,b ) (12)
by applying the condition opt
(Wa ,Wb )
opt

Hi,l Wk,l = 0 ∀i = {i = 1, . . . , K }, i ̸= k (8) opt opt

where Wa and Wb are the optimized precoding weights
The ZF scheme is able to cancel the inter-user interference and R S , a and R S , b are the sum rates for cell a and cell b
entirely, however, above condition puts restrictions on antenna respectively. To further simply the situation, let us assume each
configurations. Additional detriment associated with ZF is cell in the cluster has only one user. Accordingly, we denote
exclusion of noise term in finding the beamforming weights. users k1 and k2 assumed to be located at the boundaries of
On the other hand, the antenna condition is no more required cell a and cell b respectively. By inserting sum rate expression
in SLNR based approach and it accounts for noise contribution from (6), Eq. (12) modifies as
as well while selecting beamforming weights.
opt opt
(Wk1 ,a , Wk2 ,b ) = arg max
opt opt
3.2. SLNR based coordinated beamforming (Wk ,a ,Wk ,b ) (13)
1 2
( )
× log2 (1 + S I N Rk1 ,a ) + log2 (1 + S I N Rk2 ,b )
In our beamforming CS/CBF-CoMP scheme, we utilize
the notion of SLNR and strive to exploit the benefits of where S I N Rk1 ,a and S I N Rk2 ,b are the SINR for users k1 and
this approach. First, we discuss the transformation of SINR k2 positioned in the cell a cell b respectively. Assuming SINR
expression for CS/CBF into corresponding SLNR expression ≫ 1, we can approximate Eq. (13) as
for kth user. For this, we reconsider the intended signal power
∥Hk,l Wk,l ∥2 defined in Eqs. (2) and (4), where Hk,l and Wk,l opt opt
(Wk1 ,a , Wk2 ,b ) ≈ arg max
denote channel and precoding matrices respectively corre- opt opt
(Wk ,a ,Wk ,b ) (14)
1 2
sponding to the user k from the serving cell l. Further, we ( )
× log2 (S I N Rk1 ,a ) + log2 (S I N Rk2 ,b )
define ∥Hi,l Wk,l ∥2 as the leakage power radiated towards ith
user by the signal intended for user k from the cell l. Consid-
Equivalently,
ering K active users, the SLNR for kth user in a single cell
environment can be expressed as opt opt
(Wk1 ,a , Wk2 ,b ) ≈ arg max
( )
2
log2 (S I N Rk1 ,a · S I N Rk2 ,b )
∥Hk,l Wk,l ∥ opt
(Wk ,a ,Wk ,b )
opt
S L N Rk,l = ∑ K (9) 1 2
i=1,i̸=k ∥Hi,l Wk,l ∥2 + σ 2
(15)
For each user, the intended signal power denoted by numerator
term in Eq. (9) is preferred to be as large as possible as
compared to the aggregate of leakage power represented by ≈ arg max
opt opt
the first term of the denominator. For the clustered multi-cell (Wk ,a ,Wk ,b )
1 2
scenarios, (9) can be modified as ( (
∥Hk1 ,a Wa ∥2
)(
∥Hk2 ,b Wb ∥2
))
× log2
∥Hk,l Wk,l ∥2 (∥Hk1 ,b Wb ∥2 ) + σ 2 (∥Hk2 ,a Wa ∥2 ) + σ 2
S L N Rk,l = ∑ L ∑ K (10)
i=1 p=1, p̸=k ∥H p,i,l Wk,l ∥2 + σ 2 (16)
5
S. Gulia and A. Ahmad ICT Express xxx (xxxx) xxx

where H̃k1 ,a = [HkT2 ,a ]T and H̃k2 ,b = [HkT1 ,b ]T are the extended

channel matrices that exclude Hk1 ,a and Hk2 ,b respectively. In
general,
H̃ki ,l = [HkT1 ,l · · · HkTi−1 ,l , HkTi+1 ,l · · · HkTK ,l ]T (22)
where l ∈ {1, 2, . . . , L} and H̃ki , l ∈ C Nr (L−1)×N t . The optimal
precoding vectors can be found by solving Eqs. (20) and (21)
given by [43]
(( )−1 H )
opt
wi ∝ max .eigenvector σ 2 I + H̃iH H̃i Hi Hi (23)
in terms of eigenvector corresponding
)−1 H to the largest eigenvalue
of the matrix σ 2 I + H̃iH H̃i
(
Hi Hi . Note that in the SLNR
metric based CBF scheme discussed above, cluster size of
2 has been assumed. However, the concept can be extended
Fig. 4. Geometric layout of system model: Green circles, red triangles and to desired number of cells in a cluster by considering all
red dots represent eNBs, directional sector antennas and UEs respectively. interfering cells while designing the generalized interference
channel matrix given by Eq. (22). By referring to Eqs. (10),
(18) and (19), we can write
The S I N Rk1 ,a and S I N Rk2 ,b indicated as part (a) and (b) ⎛ ⎞
respectively in Eq. (16) can be rearranged as opt ∥H k,l W l ∥ 2
Wk,l = arg max ⎝ ∑ L ∑ K ⎠ (24)
opt opt Wk,l ∥H W ∥ 2 + σ2
(Wk1 ,a , Wk2 ,b ) ≈ arg max i=1 p=1 p,i,l
p̸=k
l
opt opt
(Wk ,a ,Wk ,b )
1 2 Therefore, for the multi-cell scenario we can directly apply
∥Hk1 ,a Wa ∥2 ∥Hk2 ,b Wb ∥2
( ( )( ))
Eq. (24) for calculating the optimal precoding weights.
× log2
(∥Hk2 ,a Wa ∥2 ) + σ 2 (∥Hk1 ,b Wb ∥2 ) + σ 2
4. Results and discussion
(17)
We consider a downlink statically clustered CoMP system
It can be observed from Eq. (17) that S I N Rk1 ,a and S I N Rk2 ,b with wraparound configuration and cluster size, L = 3.
have taken the form of S L N Rk1 and S L N Rk2 respectively, The geometric layout of system model is depicted in Fig. 4.
resembling SLNR equations (9) and (10). From Eq. (17), we The CoMP framework contains 7 hexagonal grid eNB sites
can write expressions for optimized precoding weights for cell (designated as A, B, C, D, E, F, and G), each consisting of 3
a and cell b respectively as sectors (or cells). Each cell associated with a physical site is
equipped with directional antennas. The three cells associated
∥Hk1 ,a Wa ∥2 with site A are labeled as A1, A2, A3. Likewise, B1, B2, B3
( )
opt
Wk1 ,a = arg max (18) are the cells associated with site B, and so on. The layout
W
opt (∥Hk2 ,a Wa ∥2 ) + σ 2
k1 ,a represents an inter-site CoMP operation where cells associated
with multiple sites are cooperating as indicated by shaded area
opt ∥Hk2 ,b Wb ∥2
( ) (cooperation area). Whereas all three cells associated with site
Wk2 ,b = arg max (19) A are involved in CoMP operation, cells associated with rest
W
opt (∥Hk1 ,b Wb ∥2 ) + σ 2
k2 ,b of the sites located in only inner circle (first tier) of site A are
opt opt coordinating. Further, each cell has K = 3 scheduled users
where ∥Wki ,l ∥2 = 1. Note that Wki ,l , l ∈ {1, 2, . . . , L}, are with uniform random distribution where each base station and
the global precoding weights that are computed by a single UE is configured with Nt = Nr = 2 antennas. We consider
entity (CCU) based on the local CSI shared by cluster cells. distance-dependent path loss propagation model with a decay
Hence, optimized precoding weights for users k1 and k2 can factor of 3.76 as defined in [8]. The SNR threshold for a user to
be calculated using Eqs. (18) and (19) such that SLNR for be grouped as cell-edge user is set at 15 dB. The shadowing ef-
each user is maximized. Accordingly, cluster sum rate can be fect considered follows log normal distribution with a standard
maximized by designing optimal precoding weights for each deviation of 8 dB. Major simulation parameters assumptions
user in the cluster in a coordinated manner. Eqs. (18) and (19) are listed in Table 1.
can further be rewritten as We investigate the impact of noise on the performance of
∥Hk1 ,a Wa ∥2 average sum rate of various precoding schemes as presented
( )
opt
Wk1 ,a = arg max (20) in Fig. 5. For the purpose of comparison of evaluation re-
opt
Wk ,a ∥ H̃k1 ,a Wa ∥2 + σ 2
1 sults of the proposed SLNR based coordinated beamforming
∥Hk2 ,b Wb ∥2
( )
opt scheme, referred to as SLNR-CBF, we consider multi-cell
Wk2 ,b = arg max (21) zero forcing beamforming (MC-ZFBF) scheme [33], multi-cell
W
opt ∥ H̃k2 ,b Wb ∥2 + σ 2
k2 ,b block diagonalization beamforming (MC-BDZF) scheme [34]
6
S. Gulia and A. Ahmad ICT Express xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 1
Major simulation parameters.
Parameter Value
Cellular layout Hexagonal grid
Inter-site distance 500 m
Carrier frequency 2 GHz
Bandwidth 20 MHz
UE speed 5 km/h
Scheduling Proportional fair
Feedback channel delay 3
Receiver algorithm MMSE-IRC
Pathloss model 128.1 + 37.6 · log10 (dkm ) dB
Fast fading model SCM, urban macro
Traffic model Full buffer
Receiver noise figure 9 dB
Penetration loss 20 dB
eNB/UE transmit power 46 dBm/23 dBm
Small-scale fading model Rayleigh
Noise spectral density −174 dBm/Hz Fig. 5. Performance of average sum rate vs. SNR.
Network synchronization Synchronized

and SINR constraints based coordinated beamforming (SINR-

CBF) scheme [35]. Since CoMP is more beneficial to cell-edge
users, we emphasis on the performance results of cell edge
users. The average sum rate is found by solving Eq. (10)
and then taking average over 500 random user placements,
each subjected to 100 i.i.d. realizations of Rayleigh small
scale fading channels. As evident from the sum rate curves,
proposed SLNR based beamforming scheme offers improved
performance compared to its counterparts in high noise re-
gions. As expected, MC-ZFBF scheme has poor performance
in low SNR regime; MC-BDZF offers some improvement
in the low to medium SNR regimes. Typically, BD schemes
outperform ZF and even MMSE at high SNRs when the users
are equipped with multiple antennas as discussed earlier. How-
ever both schemes put restriction on number of the antenna
configurations. The coordinated beamforming provides opti-
Fig. 6. CDF of average user spectral efficiency.
mal solution theoretically but with only slight improvement in
sum rate performance. However, it requires iterative algorithms
for convex optimization problem, leading to high complexity. schemes are presented in Fig. 7 and it can be noted that pro-
Whereas the performance of proposed SLNR based scheme posed SLNR-CBF yields gains of 9.53%, 31.11% and 72.65
is very close to SINR-CBF schemes in almost entire region, in terms of average sum rate and gains of 14.29%, 69.01%
it provides additional benefit in terms of low complexity, and 83.83% in terms of average user spectral efficiency over
relaxes constraints imposed by antenna condition and provides SINR-CBF, MC-BDZF and MC-ZFBF schemes respectively.
superior performance than the conventional channel inversion
schemes in noise dominated environments.
We examine the effect on average user spectral efficiency of 5. Conclusion
various schemes, presented as CDF curves in Fig. 6. Note that
lower spectral efficiency region belongs to cell-edge users and In this article, we presented a robust coordinated beamform-
high spectral efficiency region relates to the cell-center users. ing scheme which is based upon the leakage based criteria. The
It can be observed that SINR scheme curve closely follows proposed scheme follows the SLNR metric to maximize the
proposed SLNR metric based schemes in both the cases. Even average sum rate and the average user throughput. The evalu-
though, proposed scheme has superiority over conventional ation results are analyzed and investigated in a three-eNB site
schemes in terms of both the parameters as mentioned above. scenario and compared with multi-cell beamforming schemes
Predominantly, the improvement in throughput gains are influ- namely—MC-ZFBF, MC-BDZF and SINR-CBF schemes. The
enced by resilience offered by SLNR based scheme in the high performance is validated through simulation results and it is
noise regimes. Additionally, it offers reduced computational observed that presented scheme outclasses its counterparts
cost relatively, as stated earlier. The evaluation results of all the and offers a low complexity beamforming solution for the
CS/CBF-CoMP based cellular networks.
7
S. Gulia and A. Ahmad
Fig. 7. Performance of various beamforming schemes.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Sandeep Gulia: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investi-
gation, Software, Writing – original draft, Writing – review
& editing, Software, Data curation. Anwar Ahmad: Concep-
tualization, Supervision, Visualization, Validation, Writing –
review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The work in this article was supported by the Ministry of
Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government
of India under the Visvesvaraya Ph.D. Scheme.
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