Distributed inter-cell interference mitigation in OFDMA wireless data networks

We consider the problem of distributed inter-cell interference mitigation in multi-carrier wireless cellular networks. Assuming that neighboring base stations can be coordinated, we optimize the network weighted sum-rate via binary power control. The weights account for different priorities of mobile terminals, and are periodically updated to maintain proportional fairness. We design two distributed algorithms for inter-cell coordination which converge to a state where no base station can individually change its activity status to improve the weighted sum-rate of the network. Numerical results show that these algorithms achieve a significant throughput gain, especially for cell-edge users (up to 20%), compared to a conventional proportional fair scheduling algorithm without inter-cell coordination. Remarkably, the proposed distributed algorithms require limited feedback and achieve most of the throughput gain within few iterations.