Modeling and Analysis of K-Tier Downlink Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

Cellular networks are in a major transition from a carefully planned set of large tower-mounted basestations (BSs) to an irregular deployment of heterogeneous infrastructure elements that often additionally includes micro, pico, and femtocells, as well as distributed antennas. In this paper, we develop a tractable, flexible, and accurate model for a downlink heterogeneous cellular network (HCN) consisting of K tiers of randomly located BSs, where each tier may differ in terms of average transmit power, supported data rate and BS density. Assuming a mobile user connects to the strongest candidate BS, the resulting Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio (SINR) is greater than 1 when in coverage, Rayleigh fading, we derive an expression for the probability of coverage (equivalently outage) over the entire network under both open and closed access, which assumes a strikingly simple closed-form in the high SINR regime and is accurate down to −4 dB even under weaker assumptions. For ext...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Harpreet S. Dhillon, Radha Krishna Ganti, François Baccelli, Jeffrey G. Andrews
• Keywords: Cellular Network, CORR 2011, Education, Heterogeneous Cellular Network, Tiers