An enhanced random access scheme and performance evaluation for M2M communications in 5G/HetNets

Machine - to - Machine communication (M2M) also known as Machine Type communication (MTC), in 3GPP LTE systems, is expected to play an important role to realize Internet of Things (IoT). In fact, it is considered as an emerging technology to provide ubiquitous connectivity among devices without human intervention. Due to its wide coverage and Heterogeneous Networks(HetNets), the next generation of communication system, which is commonly referred to as 5G cellular network, is expected to support, besides traditional voice and data traffic, M2M communication. However, this new communication paradigm generates concurrent and massive access attempts with small data traffic and low mobility. As consequently, this latter may cause overload problems in the radio access network (RAN), which lead to intolerable access delay, packet loss and even unavailability service. In this paper, we derive an optimal model to handle Random Access (RA) loads from MTC devices. Our interest is based on balancing Random Access intensity among macro and small cells in order to reduce the collision probability, increase network resource utilization and minimize access delay. The proposed model is assessed via analysis and simulations. Related results show the ability to maintain the optimal RA while satisfying the load balancing between cells.