A Novel Coalitional Structure Generation Algorithm for Interference Mitigation in Small Cell Networks

Small cell networks are considered one of the key technologies in the next generation wireless networks. One of the main challenges in this area of research is how to tackle the problems of interference and resource allocation, especially for the hyper dense deployment of small cells. In this paper, we study the problem of cooperative interference mitigation in a small cell network. In particular, we develop a novel algorithm for encouraging small cell base stations to cooperate with their neighbors. Considering coalitional structure, small cells can mitigate the co-tier interference within a coalition and thus increase the system capacity. A cooperative approach among the adjacent small cells is formulated as a coalitional structure generation with characteristic forms. Meanwhile, during the coalition being formed, the associated frequency resources are also assigned. In contrast to the previous small cells' cooperative algorithms, a new feature for the proposed algorithm requires the computation for pairs of players. The proposed algorithm will raise the efficiency and is particularly applicable to the mass small cells' deployment scenario.