Joint resource allocation with QoS provisioning in K-tier heterogeneous cellular networks

In this paper, the joint resource allocation (RA) problem with quality of service (QoS) provisioning in downlink heterogeneous cellular networks (HCN) is studied. To fully exploit the network capacity, the HCN is modeled as a K-tier cellular network where each tier's base stations (BSs) have different properties. However, deploying numbers of low power nodes (LPNs) which share the same frequency band with macrocell generates severe inter-cell interference. Enhancement of system capacity is restricted for inter-cell interference. Therefore, a feasible RA scheme has to be developed to fully exploit the resource efficiency. Under the constraint of inter-cell interference, we formulate the RA problem as a mixed integer programming problem. To solve the optimization problem we develop a two-stage solution. An integer subchannel assignment algorithm and Lagrangian-based power allocation algorithm are designed. In addition, the biasing factor is also considered and the caused influence on system capacity is evaluated. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms achieve a good tradeoff between network capacity and interference. Moreover, the average network efficiency is highly improved and the outage probability is also decreased.