Cell Sectorization and Power Management for Inter-Cell Interference Coordination in OFDMA-based Network MIMO Systems

Network multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) aims at mitigating the inter-cell interference and improve the performance of cell-edge users (CEUs) through multi-cell cooperative transmissions. This paper investigates the cell sectorization and power management on top of fractional frequency reuse (FFR) based network MIMO systems. It is shown that both the signal strength and interference quantity greatly depend on the layout of cell sectorization. Specifically, a commonly used one is shown to be inappropriate. It is found that there exists a method of sectorization that causes less interference to cell-center users (CCUs) and meantime offers better signal quality to CEU during network MIMO transmissions. Also, results show that the proposed method of managing power can improve the signal quality of other cells CEUs and not degrade the performance of intra-cell users at the same time.