Load distribution aware soft frequency reuse for inter-cell interference mitigation and throughput maximization in LTE networks

This paper proposes a novel load distribution aware soft frequency reuse (LDA-SFR) scheme for inter-cell interference mitigation and performance optimization in next generation wireless networks. Our proposed scheme aims to provide a solution to effectively achieve inter-cell interference mitigation while maintaining high spectrum efficiency to all users in the cell. The proposed scheme consists of two novel algorithms: edge bandwidth reuse and centre bandwidth compensation. Using the edge bandwidth reuse algorithm, cell-edge users can take advantage of uneven traffic load and user distributions within each cell to expand their resource allocations. The center bandwidth compensation algorithm, on the other hand, provides a protection mechanism for cell-center users to avoid exhaustive edge bandwidth extension. Applying LDA-SFR to an LTE network and comparing its performance against that of existing soft frequency reuse (SFR) and adaptive soft frequency reuse (ASFR) schemes indicates that LDA-SFR is superior as it achieves fairness between cell-edge users and cell-center users in terms of average throughput improvement.