Analysis of the Optimal Number of Clusters in UDN Environment

Ultra-Dense Network is considered as a 5G / B5G network environment, which is a method of increasing network capacity by greatly increasing the density of small base stations. In the UDN network environment, the deployment of numerous base stations causes a problem of inter-cell interference, and also an efficient frequency resource allocation should be considered. In order to manage efficient frequency resources, a clustering method, which is a method of managing a lot of base stations as a unit, is introduced. Resource management for clustering is greatly depending on the number of clusters to be set up, such as the number of small base stations per cluster and the location of the center point. According to the number of clusters, the inter-cell interference between clusters and frequency reuse factor are evaluated and the optimal number of clusters is analyzed in the given UDN environment that achieves the maximum capacity. As a result, the maximum capacity is achieved when the number of clusters in the UDN environment is around 13, and it is found that the operating frequency band (channel characteristics) has the greatest effect on an optimal number of clusters.