A Unified Frequency Reuse Framework for Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

The frequency reuse technique is a fundamental and classical issue in the interference management of cellular networks, and has never experienced any fundamental shifts from the first generation to the current LTE. With the development of 5G, the classic frequency reuse (FR) is no longer suitable for heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs). In this paper, we propose a unified frequency reuse (UFR) model for a heterogeneous networking architecture in future wireless cellular communications, where the HCN is divided into different tiers with different frequency band assigned. Then, we take an HCN with different overlapped tiers of densely deployed base stations as an example and analyze the spectral efficiency, transmission ability and energy efficiency of the network when the proposed UFR scheme is applied. The numerical results demonstrate that the proposed model is not only beneficial to the frequency allocation but also achieves higher performance for future 5G wireless communications.