User-Centric Cross-Tier Base Station Clustering and Cooperation in Heterogeneous Networks: Rate Improvement and Energy Saving

Heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets) are to be deployed for future wireless communication to meet the ever-increasing mobile traffic demand. However, the dense and random deployment of small cells and their uncoordinated operation raise important concerns about various costs issues, among which notably is energy efficiency. Base station (BS) cooperation is set to play a key role in managing interference in HetNets. In this paper, we consider BS cooperation in the downlink HetNets where BSs from different tiers within the respective cooperative clusters jointly transmit the same data to a typical user, and in particular focus on the optimization of the energy efficiency performance. First, based on a proposed clustering model, we derive the spectral efficiency using tools from stochastic geometry. Furthermore, we formulate a power minimization problem with a minimum spectral efficiency constraint and derive the optimal received signal strength (RSS) thresholds under certain approximation. Building upon these results, we could address the problem of how to design appropriate RSS thresholds, taking into account the tradeoff between spectral efficiency and energy efficiency. Simulations show that the proposed clustering model is more energy-saving than the geometric clustering model, and deploying a multitier HetNet is significantly more energy-saving compared to a macro-only network.