Realistic implementation and validation of a Macrocell/Femtocell Interference-mitigation Technique for LTE-based systems

Abstract

This paper provides details of the design, implementation and realistic verification of a macrocell/femtocell interference-mitigation technique targeting high-performance broadband LTEbased wireless communication systems. As in the Existing methods, the focus is laid on the description of the FPGA design and the employed RTL techniques, whose goal was to provide a hardware-efficient implementation of adaptive PHY-layer solutions. An important aspect of the presented PHY-layer prototyping is the utilization of real-life operating conditions, hardware specifications, constraints and mobile channel propagation conditions. In order to support the complex development cycle it was introduced an iterative design, implementation and verification methodology, covering all the required steps from the definition of the system requirements and high-level modelling to the comprehensive evaluation of the resulting prototype based on a realistic hardware-setup. Two representative use cases detail this core contribution and underlined the suitability of the proposed development flow. The first use case is a 2x2 MIMO closed-loop PHY-layer scheme, based on the mobile Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) wireless communication standard and featuring a Transmit Antenna Selection (TAS) mechanism. The second use case implements a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based macrocell/femtocell interferencemanagement scheme