Energy Efficiency Analysis of FeICIC in Dense Heterogeneous Networks

Although almost blank subframes (ABS) proposed in heterogeneous networks (HetNet) can enhance the performance of user equipments (UEs) in Pico-cell range expansion (CRE) area, it also significantly degrades the Macro-cell throughput. To address this issue, further-enhanced inter-cell interference coordination (FeICIC) scheme is considered in 3GPP Release 11, where low power ABS (LP-ABS) are adopted for the Macro-cell center region users to improve the Macro-cell throughput. However, LP-ABS power, Pico CRE bias and Pico base station (PBS) density will jointly affect on the system performance, which eventually deteriorates the network energy efficiency (EE) without careful configuration. In this paper, we first deduce the closed-form expression of network EE as a function of PBS density, Pico CRE bias and LP-ABS power based on stochastic geometry model. Then we provide Monte Carlo simulations to verify the accuracy of theoretical derivation of the network EE and analyze the impacts of these parameters on the network EE. The simulation results show that the reasonable PBS density, Pico CRE bias and LP-ABS power can improve the network EE obviously.