Distance-based cell range extension and almost blank sub-frame for load balancing and interference mitigation in 5G and beyond heterogeneous networks

The goal of deploying LTE-Advanced heterogeneous networks is to meet the growing need for Quality of Service (QoS), high data rates, and more coverage. Load balancing is one of the biggest problems, especially when User Equipment (UE) uses received signal strength to connect to different transmission power network tiers. Spectrum for small cells has not been used to its full potential. While all the cells are using the same frequency spectrum and the small cells overlap the Macro Cells, preventing interference is another big problem. The proposed Cell Range Extension (CRE) and Almost Blank Sub-frame (ABS) provides a solution to overcome these challenges. The proposed ABS in this paper is novel because it is a partial muting one rather than the full muting ABS in recent research studies. In addition, the cell association method is by distance rather than conventional Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP). CRE-ABS has been applied simultaneously to solve both load balancing and interference. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves substantial throughput and Jain's Fairness Index (JFI).