Optimal power control and coverage management in two-tier femtocell networks

In this article, we jointly consider the problem of efficient power control and coverage (PCC) management over an integrated two-tier macrocell/femtocell network towards maximizing the expected throughput of the system subject to appropriate power constraints, under the existence of both co-tier and cross-tier interferences. Optimal network design amounts to joint optimization of users’ allocated power levels and cell’s maximum aggregated downlink transmitted power, i.e., coverage area management. This problem is inherently difficult because it is in fact a non-convex optimization problem. A novel approach to address the latter is performed that entails a suitable transformation, which allows the use of convex optimization and also forms the basis for the design of a distributed PCC algorithm via performing two-level primal-dual decomposition. PCC algorithm’s convergence to optimality is established. We demonstrate that for realistic macrocell/femtocell deployment scenarios, overall system throughput increase up to approximately 50% can be achieved while guaranteeing 70% of power savings.