A Power Control Mechanism Based on Priority Grouping for Small Cell Networks

Future mobile networks following Long Term Evolution (LTE) will be characterized by demanding services, in terms of bandwidth and delay, already dominant in wired networks, such as cloud-computing, High Definition of anything (HDOA) and highly-interactive online games. Small Cell technology is one of the key-technologies aiming to address the need for ultra-high performance in future mobile networks. This paper is focused on efficient power control in Small Cell Networks (SCNs). In particular, we propose a power control mechanism for efficient power allocation in SCNs. The proposed mechanism efficiently controls systems' interference while on the other hand guarantees home user QoS. We introduce the methodology of Priority Grouping, in which home users in the topology is assigned to one of the available groups with different priorities in terms of power requirements and requested traffic load. The mechanism dynamically updates the Home evolved Node B power setting based on the topology of the macro and home users in real time. Additionally, depending on the examined traffic scenario the mechanism can provide better protection (in terms of interference) either on macro users or on home users.