Study of Handover Techniques for 4G Network MIMO Systems

Abstract

For the upcoming 4G systems, network multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) are two of key techniques adopted in 4G systems to mitigate the serious inter-cell interference (ICI) and improve coverage and cell-edge throughput. Network MIMO is referred to as coordinated multi-point (CoMP) in LTE-A. In this paper, we propose a simulation platform to analyze the handover issue for downlink CoMP transmissions in LTE-A cellular systems. Among the variety of ICIC strategies, we apply the widely adopted soft frequency reuse (SFR) and the fractional frequency reuse (FFR) schemes. Both schemes are based on the idea of applying a frequency reuse factor of one in cell-center areas, and a higher reuse factor in cell-edge areas. Therefore, the ICI is reduced at the expense of the available frequency resources for each cell.