Dynamic UE-Grouping Based Interference Management for Ultra-Dense Networks

In the formerly-released 3GPP standards, the small cell enhancements based on dual connectivity achieve not only avoiding interference from macro cells but also coordinating interference among small cells. However, the performance improvement of such small cell enhancements based on dual connectivity is limited as the number of UEs increases. In this paper, we propose a dynamic UE-grouping based interference management scheme for ultra-dense networks. The UEs in the clustered small cells are classified into two groups based on the probability of experiencing inter-cell interference. Then, the data transmission powers of aggressor and victim cells corresponding to the grouped UEs are controlled for interference mitigation. According to the simulation results, the UE-group experiencing poor channel state obtains significant throughput improvement. Also, the average throughput of the other UE-group is slightly improved compared to its original average throughput. Therefore, the cluster's capacity is improved. Consequently, the proposed scheme undoubtedly improves the expected throughput of UE compared to the small cell enhancements based on dual connectivity in the 3GPP standards.