Improving Load Balancing in Various User Distribution LTE Advanced HetNets through a Hybrid Channel-Gain Access-Aware Cell Selection Scheme

Abstract

Long Term Evolution (LTE)-Advanced Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) deployment was introduced to address the increasing demand for Quality of Service (QoS), high data rates, and coverage extension. However, load balancing still remains a critical problem in HetNets. Adopting the conventional Reference Signal Receive Power (RSRP)-based cell selection in HetNets causes most user equipment (UE) to connect with the Macro eNodeBs (MeNBs) due to their higher transmit power as against that of the Pico eNodeBs (PeNBs), thus leading to serious load imbalance in HetNets. Therefore, this hybrid algorithm combined the channel gain-aware and the access-aware cell association metrics as a single metric for UE to base station association in LTE-Advanced HetNets deployment scenarios. The scenarios considered are the HetNets configuration 1 and configuration 4b. The developed Hybrid Channel Gain Access Aware (HCGAA) scheme improved load balancing performance by 25.4% and 12.1%, respectively, compared with the 3GPP RSRP and Reference Signal Receive Power plus Cell Range Expansion (RSRP +CRE) cell selection scheme. Also, an enhanced pico connection ratio of up to 40.2%, which is 21.3% more than that of the RSRP and RSRP +CRE cell selection schemes was achieved by the HCGAA algorithm. These improvements translate to the efficient utilization of the network resource and prevent crowding of certain cells in the network.