LTE energy saving SON using fingerprinting for identification of cells to be activated

Energy saving for future radio access networks is an increasingly significant factor for network operators not only for cost reduction but also for meeting the environmental challenges. The expected exponential rise in data traffic requires the additional deployment of a very large number of base stations (BS) mostly with small coverage areas to provide the needed capacity. This increase in the BS density causes also a sharp rise in energy consumption of cellular networks. However, a self-organized process can adapt the network capacity to the current traffic demand by activating and deactivating cells in line with the changing traffic profile. Cell deactivation is in most cases a straight forward process as a cell can easily determine when its traffic has significantly reduced. It is, however, not obvious to determine which cell to activate, when multiple cells are concurrently switched off. In this work we propose the use of the fingerprinting method solely based on UE RSRP measurements for identifying the best fitting cell to take over the upcoming traffic. In case the increasing traffic can no longer be served by the activated cells, the capacity of currently deactivated cells is needed. Current measurements of a UE demanding high data rates are matched with a number of cells deactivated at a given time. The best matching candidate to take over the upcoming traffic is selected and switched on to satisfy the growing traffic.