Joint Downlink Cell Association and Bandwidth Allocation for Wireless Backhauling in Two-Tier HetNets With Large-Scale Antenna Arrays

The problem of joint downlink cell association (CA) and wireless backhaul bandwidth allocation (WBBA) in two-tier cellular heterogeneous networks (HetNets) is investigated. Large-scale antenna array is implemented at the macro base station (BS), while the small cells within the macro cell range are single-antenna BSs and they rely on over-the-air links to the macro BS for backhauling. A sum logarithmic user rate maximization problem is studied under the wireless backhaul constraints. Duplex and spectrum sharing with co-channel reverse time-division duplex (TDD) and dynamic soft frequency reuse is considered for interference management in the two-tier HetNet employing large-scale antenna arrays at the macro BS and wireless backhauling for small cells. Two in-band WBBA scenarios, namely, unified bandwidth allocation and per-small-cell bandwidth allocation, are investigated for joint CA-WBBA in the HetNet. A two-level hierarchical decomposition method for relaxed optimization is employed to solve the mixed-integer nonlinear program (MINLP). Solutions based on the General Algorithm Modeling System (GAMS) optimization solver and fast heuristics are also proposed for cell association in the per-small-cell WBBA scenario. It is shown that when all small cells have to use in-band wireless backhaul, the system load has more impact on both the sum logarithmic rate and per-user rate performance than the number of small cells deployed within the macro cell range. The proposed joint CA-WBBA algorithms have an optimal load approximately equal to the size of the large-scale antenna array at the macro BS. The cell range expansion (CRE) strategy, which is an efficient cell association scheme for HetNets with ideal backhauling, is shown to be inefficient when in-band wireless backhauling for small cells comes into play.