Abstract
This paper proposes a collaborative-based scheme for a transmit antenna channel assignment in overloaded multi-antenna femtocells, with the aim of reducing the overhead load. It is assumed that multiple femtocell access points (FAPs) are deployed to sequentially allocate the available resources to scheduled users while reducing the interference experienced by each active user. The FAPs operate concurrently and each of them is allocated an orthogonal channel and employs a transmit array of arbitrary size. The suitable FAP and its associated transmit channel are then identified based on the noncoherently predicted interference power levels on available channels when feedback links are capacity limited. The effect of possible FAP failure or infeasibility to collaborate is characterized for different operating conditions. The applicability of the proposed scheme for specific cases, such as the use of directional antennas in each FAP or shared channels among different FAPs, is also discussed. For arbitrary statistical models of interference power levels on different channels, the average numbers of collaboration requests and examined transmit antenna channels are quantified. Moreover, the statistics of the resulting interference power are derived, which are then used to study various system performance measures. The effect of the interference threshold on the aforementioned measures for processing load and achieved performance is investigated. Numerical and simulations results are presented to support the analytical development and to clarify the tradeoff between the achieved performance enhancement using the proposed scheme and the required processing load for different operating scenarios.