LTE-A enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (eICIC) with Pico Cell Adaptive Antenna

In LTE-Advanced Heterogeneous Networks, Pico-eNBs are deployed to adequately offload traffic from Macro layer and bring user closer to the base station to enhance the cell edge user experience. However, Macro-eNB causes strong interference to Pico Cell edge users due to its higher transmission power. Inter-Cell interference is the biggest challenge in LTE-A HetNets. Lot of research is performed for years to solve this critical problem in an efficient way and many contributions have been made. This thesis is an in-depth analysis of Inter-Cell Interference in LTE-Advanced HetNets and explores various solutions proposed in literature to reduce interference. It presents a pioneering tactic based on the blend of eICIC and smart antennas to further reduce the Macro interference. The simulations for downlink co-channel deployment of Macro-eNB and Pico-eNB, demonstrates overall network performance gain and improved QoS for the Pico Cell edge users’ achieved using the proposed scheme.