Survey on inter-cell interference coordination in LTE-Advanced heterogeneous networks

Heterogeneous Networks are multitier networks in which under macrocellular layout, low power picocells, femtocells and RRHs having possibly shared spectrum and exist together in the identical geographical area. More users can now served within the same area and it is aimed by this spatial reuse is to boost spectral efficiency per unit area, to make better coverage in the indoor environment and improved user performance at the cell-edge by offloading the macrocells. The deployment network overhead is low and as advance planning is not required for small nodes so operational and capital cost is extremely reduced. HetNets deployment is considered to be an excellent opportunity for enhancements, however challenges are also introduced due to the cross tier interference and traffic load variability. This paper is aimed to cover the techniques which are utilized under time domain and power domain to make intercell interference less severe in LTE-Advanced heterogeneous networks.