The uplink coverage-capacity trade-off in CDMA-based multihop cellular networks

We propose a novel design for incorporating multihop transmission in code division multiple access-based cellular systems to notably reduce the intercell interference in the network. Different design issues are considered such as the allowed number of hops, type of relay stations, relay selection, accessing scheme and duplexing mode. Numerical derivations demonstrate that the intercell interference can be significantly reduced. Moreover, a link budget analysis is performed to obtain coverage-capacity trade-off results. It is shown that with single user detection receivers at base stations, gains up to 100% in area coverage are achieved with moderate to low user loads. Furthermore, by deploying advanced interference cancellation receivers at base stations to combat intracell interference, the proposed multihop-based design achieves very high gains in pole capacity and area coverage per cell. Additionally, practical implementation issues are addressed, and results are compared between omni-directional and three-sector network structures. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.