Hybrid Duplex Switching in Heterogeneous Networks

In this paper, a novel hybrid-duplex scheme based on received power is proposed for heterogeneous networks (HetNets). In the proposed scheme, the duplex mode (half or full duplex) of each user is switchable according to the received power from its serving base station. The signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio and spectral efficiency are analyzed for both downlink and uplink channels by using the tools of inhomogeneous Poisson point process. Furthermore, determining power threshold for duplex mode switching is investigated for sum rate maximization, which is formulated as a nonlinear integer programming problem and a greedy algorithm is proposed to solve this problem. The theoretical analysis and the proposed algorithm are evaluated by numerical simulations. Simulation results show that the proposed hybrid-duplex scheme outperforms the half-duplex or full-duplex HetNet schemes.