International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169

Volume: 2 Issue: 1 88 – 91
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Cell Selection Techniques in Heterogeneous LTE-Advanced System

Dhaval M. Tandel, Tanvi Shah,

Department of the Electronics and communication,
Parul Institute of the Engineering,
Limda, Vadodara.
E-mail: [email protected],[email protected]

Abstract— This survey paper provides a performance evaluation of cell selection techniques proposed for Pico cells in the Long Term
Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) networks. Pico cell is the focus of this study because it can be deployed in areas with high volume of traffic so as
to improve the system capacity. Cell selection which plays a important role in improving cell spectrum efficiency especially in heterogeneous
systems is the process that allows the user equipment’s (UEs) to select a suitable cell in order to access available services. This paper analysis
the new interference environment and the limitations of traditional cell selection methodwhich caused by low power nodes, and propose anew
cell selection strategy to resolve these problems in order to improve efficiency in LTE-A heterogeneous systems.

Index Terms—Pico-cell, cell selection, heterogeneous, LTE-A;

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I .INTRODUCTION enhanced NodeB, the evolution of the NodeB in a 3G system,

In recent years, the demand for mobile broadband services with which communicates with Use equipment’s and it can serve
higher data rates and Quality of Service is growing rapidly. one or several E-UTRAN cell one time. Thee NB nodes are
This demand has motivated 3GPP to work on Long Term directly connected to each other (this speeds up signalling
Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced to achieve higher data procedures) through the called X2 interface.
rates and less radio network delay. Since data traffic demand
is increasing at an exponential rate, further spectral efficiency EVOLVED PACKET CORE NETWORK
improvements are needed. A heterogeneous network is one
solution to overcome the space limited dense in urban area and The EPC is an all-IP based core network specified to support
improve spectral efficiency[8]. the E-UTRAN through a reduction in the number of network
elements, simpler functionality and most importantly allowing
LTE-ADVANCEDNETWORKARCHITECTURE for connections and handover strategies to other fixed line and
wireless access technologies, giving the providers the capacity
to deliver a seamless mobility experience .The main
components and functionalities of the EPC are as follows:

The Mobility Management Entity (MME) is a key control

plane element. It is responsible for user mobility, intra-LTE
handover as well as security functions (authentication,
authorization, NAS signalling). The MME also selects the
Serving Gateway (S-GW) and Packet Data Network Gateway
(PDN-GW) nodes. It is connected to the eNBs via the S1-
MME interface.

The S-GW is the termination node of the EPC. The main aim
of the SGW is to route and forward user data packets among
Figure1.1: LTE- Advanced Network Architecture
different LTE nodes and it also serves as a mobility point for
LTE-Advanced E-UTRAN overview
both local inter-eNB handover and inter-3GPP mobility. It is
connected to the E-UTRAN via the S1-U interface. S-GW and
The core part in the E-UTRAN (Evolved Universal
MME communicates using S11 interface.
Terrestrial Radio Access Network) architecture is the
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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169
Volume: 2 Issue: 1 88 – 91
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The Packet Data Network Gateway (P-GW) provides the UE CELL SELECTION
with access to a Packet Data Network (PDN). The PGW Cellselectionisbasedonthedownlinkreceivedsignalstrengthwhi
accomplishes policy enforcement, packet filtering for each user chmeansmobileusers will connect to the site from which the
or charging support among other functions. P-GW and S-GW received power is strongest. For example, in3GPP LTE, cell
communicates with each other via S5 interface. selection is performed according to two parameters measured
1.1Main Requirements of LTE and LTE-Advanced Networks by a User Equipment (UE): Reference Signal Received
Power (RSRP) and Reference Signal Received Quality
TABLE 1: Comparison of the LTE and LTE-A. (RSRQ).―Reference signal received power (RSRP), is defined
as the linear average over the power contributions of their
source elements that carry cell-specific reference signals
within the considered measurement frequency band width‖.
RSRQ is calculated based on RSRP which provides
additional information and reliable cell selection decision
when RSRP is not sufficient.

Different Techniques of Cell Selection & Cell Range

Expansion:
In recent years, many works have been done on cells election
schemes, e.g.[4][5], but there is no explicit study in discussing
the scenario of simultaneous coverage of more than one base
station. In contribution [1-3] a new cell selection scheme
II .PICO-CELL AND CELL SELECTION named as "Range Expansion (RE)" which aims at maximize
A Pico cell is a small cellular base station typically covering a the cell splitting gains and reduce uplink Interference was
small area, such as in-building (offices, shopping malls, train discussed, in which a bias value of RSRP is used for low
stations, stock exchanges, etc.), or more recently in-aircraft. power node in cell selection strategy to drive more users
In cellular networks, Pico cells are typically used to extend selecting low power node as serving node.
coverage to indoor areas where outdoor signals do not reach
well, or to add network capacity in areas with very dense 1. Conventional cells election scheme
phone usage, such as train stations. Pico cells provide In the traditional cell selection method UE can select the
coverage and capacity in areas difficult or expensive to reach serving cell by comparing the Reference Signal Received
using the more traditional Macro cell approach. Pico cell is Powers (RSRPs) received from macro eNBs and Pico eNBs.
one of the important solutions which can be deployed The cell with the highest RSRP will be selected as the serving
efficiently for local regions with high volume of traffic (such cell of Ue.
as hotspots) and improves the overall system capacity. Pico
cells have lower transmission power rather than macro cells CellIDserving=argmax {RSRP} [7]
(arrange from 24 to 30 dBm). Since Pico cells usually work Cell selection based on the strongest downlink RSRP is not the
in open access mode then all users can access them. In best scheme because UEs connect to a higher power node
general, the open access mode means that any user in the instead of the lower power nodes at the shortest path loss
network can automatically connect to the hotspots. Pico cells distance. Therefore, traffic load is distributed unequally which
are used to improve capacity as well as the coverage of can lead to macro cells overloading.
outdoor or indoor regions. Moreover, the communication 2. RE cell selection scheme
between macro cells and Pico cells is doneovertheX2 To further improvement users select serving cell are based
interface [8]. on:
Cell ID serving= argmax {RSRP +bias} [7]

Where bias is zero for the macro cell and has a non-negative
value for the small cells, resulting in more users being
transferred to the small cells. When RE strategy is adopted,
more users are access into Pico cells, e.g. PUE 4 to 7, which
would originally access into the macro cell using RSRP
strategy. Such a strategy may offload significant amount of
Figure2: Macro-Pico Cell Network traffic from the macro cell to the Pico cells, but it can also lead
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IJRITCC | January 2014, Available @ http://www.ijritcc.org
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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169
Volume: 2 Issue: 1 88 – 91
_____________________________________________________________________________
to more interference from the macro base-station at the mobile IV. Simulation
which is associated with the Pico base-station. Besides, if the
bias value is not properly set, some problems will be
introduced [7].
Considering the following two cases:
The bias is low: In this case, a large number of users won’t
access into the Pico cell because of the Pico cells’ small
coverage. The resources (e.g. frequency band/power) won’t be
fully exploited, which will lead to a bad system performance
[7].

The bias is high: In this case, the coverage of the Pico cells
will be manually ―enlarged‖, which will admit more users.
Many of the users accessing into Pico cells will not be
scheduled due to their long distance from the Pico eNode Band
bad RSRP, which may lead to scheduling outage. Moreover,
those who are relatively close to macro eNodeB will suffer
dramatic interference. Thus, the bias value for RE strategy
should be carefully designed to get a good system performance
[7]. Figure 4 CDF of Heterogeneous Network

3. Based on Queue scheme V. CONCLUSION

The procedure of BQ cell selection strategy, which details are
follows: Heterogeneous network is a new and important field in the
1. If there is multi-carrier to use, UE selects a carrier frequency LTE-Advanced system, and CDF of the heterogeneous
of its capability. network has been implemented. Furthermore, a new cell
2. Based on the RSRP of neighbour cells, UE make a "priority Selection scheme which can assign users in Pico and macro
queue" itself. The criterion of "priority queue" is the top N cells in order to improve cell efficiency. It can be observed that
strongest RSRP cell and the RSRP value of the last cell should Based on Queue scheme is better in cell throughput
no less than that of the best cell subtracting 25dB bias. improvement Compared to Conventional and RE cell Selection
3. UE detects and synchronises to the broadcast channel of the scheme.
best RSRP cell, and judge whether existing low power cell;
4. If there is existing low power cell in the "priority queue", REFERANCES
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International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication ISSN: 2321-8169
Volume: 2 Issue: 1 88 – 91
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