Hybrid Clustering Scheme for Relaying in Multi-Cell LTE High User Density Networks

LTE usage is rapidly increasing with the increased demand for high data rate services. LTE cells with high load would be insufficient to handle all users' traffic. This may cause blocking for some users or degrade the quality for others. Several techniques are adopted to increase the capacity of LTE cells. This paper will address specifically the use of some users as relays to others in order to increase the capacity of a specific cell. The result is a two-hop topology network with some users connected directly to the base station (BS) and others using some of the already connected users as relays to access the BS. Different techniques could be used to configure the users in such a topology. The paper proposes a new algorithm for relay selection in a multi-cell scenario based on K-means and selection strategy.