Enhanced network sensitive access control scheme for LTE-LAA/WiFi coexistence: Modeling and performance analysis

Abstract Implementation of 5G and beyond networks is looking to expand the operation of licensed systems into unlicensed frequency bands through technologies such as license assisted access (LAA) and New Radio Unlicensed (NR-U). LAA aggregates licensed and unlicensed bands for long term evolution (LTE) implementation to address the ever-increasing demand for cellular data traffic and shortage of licensed spectrum. Spectrum-efficient resource-sharing schemes are, however, critical for the harmonious coexistence of LTE–LAA with incumbent systems on the unlicensed band, especially WiFi, while opportunistically improving LTE throughput and enhancing spectrum utilization of the unlicensed band. In this paper, we present a listen before talk (LBT) based clear channel assessment (CCA) mechanism for LAA eNodeBs (eNBs) to improve the coexistence performance of LTE–LAA with WiFi. Particularly, we propose an adaptive exponential backoff scheme for LTE eNB that dynamically updates the contention window (CW) size and transmission opportunity (TXOP) parameters according to network load variations. A three-dimensional discrete Markov model is developed to describe the LBT procedure of LAA eNB, and a performance model is further derived to evaluate steady-state channel access, transmission, and failure probabilities. The proposed scheme’s performance is evaluated in terms of successful transmission probability, throughput, and delay according to the 3GPP and WiFi guidelines. The results are compared with the traditional schemes proposed in literature considering fixed and adaptive CW size for LAA eNB.

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