Small Cell Deployment Challenges in Ultradense

Networks: Architecture and Resource Management

Nidhi Albena Mihovska
Department of Business Development Department of Business Development
and Technology and Technology
Aarhus University Aarhus University
Herning, Denmark Herning, Denmark
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— The industries today, are undergoing cells/femtocells/picocells, strong radio evolutions [3] and
transformational changes as a result of the growing demand for advancing access technologies will complement the capacity,
ubiquitous connectivity. To meet the increasing demand every throughput, costs, smooth interactions with the macro
day, loads of reengineering is required to achieve best-fitted coverage layer, etc.
architecture to accommodate more devices, ways to manage
available resources, enhanced radio technologies, etc. to deliver This paper is organized as follows; Section II and III will
more coverage and capacity. This paper aims to study and introduce the concept of Ultradense Network and Small Cells
present different critical features of small cell and ultradense respectively and discuss their key characteristics, and
networks. The scope is to summarize various deployment associated challenges. Section IV, will discuss some
scenarios and challenges. Broadly, the challenges w.r.t resource performance metrics and Section V, will cover key challenges
management, developing flexible architecture, managing the and section VI will summarize potential technologies and
available spectrum and also the use of unlicensed spectrum, etc. research area and finally, in Section VII paper will be
will be addressed. The shortcomings in available resource concluded with the findings.
management, interference awareness techniques, spectrum
management, etc. will be summarized with different potential II. ULTRADENSE NETWORK
technologies. For small cells, it is necessary to understand its
interaction with the macro network to demonstrate the overall
Ultradense network (UDN) is one of the preeminent
user experience. Thus, this work will present an elaborated solutions to support the infrastructure refurbishment to meet
picture of small cell evolution followed by the radio access intensified demands. The network densification or UDN is the
network (RAN) architecture to achieve a full-heterogeneous and result of deploying small cells, within the macrocells. It is
centralized network. defined as the networks having a high density of access points
than active users i.e. a network where the radio resources are
Keywords— Ultradense Network, Small Cells, RAN, RRM. in higher density as compared to current networks [5-7].
Considering different works of literature, UDN can be
I. BACKGROUND quantitatively summarized as a network with cell density
Ubiquitous and seamless connectivity is the stepping stone greater than 1000 cells / Km squared [9]. In [5-6], it is
in everyone’s anticipation for the current and upcoming characterized by shorter inter-site distance and sub-linear
wireless solutions to communication. Today we are in the capacity growth, significantly as higher BS density causes
midst of technological transformation affecting not only an higher interference [10]. Access nodes are placed in closest
individual’s life but adding up a huge percentage to National proximity to the users so provide seamless connectivity.
economy, digital ecosystem, education, health, etc. We are in A. UDN Basic Architecture
the initial phase of brewing the foundation for a sustainable
solution to all our needs. ITU [1] mentioned 2019 to witness Densification refers to the addition of more sectors to
the growth of “Digital Economy” with the online participation macro Base Stations [14] to expand the network by deploying
of more than half of the world while Ericsson’s [2] estimations small cells/femtocells/picocells as fully-functional base
state that by the end of 2025, 65% of world’s population will stations. The deployed base stations are called the iBS-
be under the coverage. Cisco [4] estimated on their Global Individual Base Stations. These are replicas of the macrocell
Mobile Traffic Forecast that by 2021 cellular networks’ traffic with reduced transmit power to provide coverage to a smaller
will be offloaded to Wi-Fi in a ration of 2:6. Sixty percent of region [9]. Some deployments have extensions to Macrocell-
total mobile data traffic was offloaded onto the fixed network Access Points, referred to the Remote Radio Heads (RRH) to
through Wi-Fi or femtocell in 2016. extend signal coverage with some or all physical layer
functionalities. Figure 1, summaries key features of different
The imminent revolutionary fifth generation of mobile types of small cells.
communications symbolizes a smart, connected and
intelligent generation. 3GPP [3] defined various enabling UDN is different from the traditionally deployed cellular
technologies for 5G. 3GPP defined the concept of small cell networks in terms of footprint, active/idle mode, interference
and network densification through its various releases along occurrence, frequency reuse pattern, backhaul connectivity,
with D2D, LTE TDD-FDD joint operation including Carrier etc. [5, 8-10]. The iBS are deployed close to end-users with
Aggregation, etc. Small Cells was supported in the HSPA and smaller coverage area and active sleep mode. Network
LTE systems alongside macrocells. Switching to Small densification is classified into Vertical and Horizontal
densifications depending on the cell deployment either on the by proving programmable capabilities and reconfigurability
elevated or the lateral planes [9]. It is also classified into [9][23].
Centralized and Decentralized based on the cell-interaction.
Figure 2, explains the Densification classification. 2) Massive IoT Environment
IoT services include a wide range of communication
infrastructure including human-to-human (H2H), human-to-
machine (H2M), machine-to- human (M2H) and machine to
machine (M2M) etc. With such network demand for
ubiquitous connectivity and the exponential increase in the
number of smart devices, it is required to have technologies
such as artificial intelligence, cloud and edge computing,
information sensing, etc. to provide a platform for all
interconnected services [20].
3) Massive MIMO Networks
Massive MIMO signifies spatial densification with
hundreds of antennas equipped into the base stations. This will
accommodate more users to available resource unit of a given
BS and thus yield huge gains. These networks are robust and
are high in reliability, throughput and Energy Efficiency [19-
20].
4) mmWave Networks
The high-frequency bands in the have the potential to
Figure 1 Types of Small Cell support large bandwidths and high data rates, ideal for
increasing the capacity of wireless networks due to the short
The performance of the network varies with different wavelengths. These networks provide large bandwidth, good
classification and thus, it requires a different modelling isolation, better co-existence due to directional antennas,
approach [9]. The vertical densification provides better spatial multiplexing gains, etc. [18].
spectral efficiency for the same area as compared to the
horizontal densification. In centralized densification, there is 5) Multi-Radio Access Technologies
a central node that controls other nodes wherein the Multi-Radio Access Technologies (Multi-RAT) indicates
decentralized approach distributed nodes are coordinated and the coordinated existence of different RATs to enhance the
require D2D communication links [22]. quality of service. In [24], described the technique to offload
the traffic to the WiFi layer to mitigate delay using optimized
RAT selection algorithms and the offloading mechanisms.
WiFi nodes have delivered rates akin to cellular technology.
Mobility management, data splitting and control flow across
cellular and WiFi nodes is critical and is an open research area.
6) Proactive Caching
Proactive caching is the predictive storing of popular
content in the BSs or the user equipment (UE) to serve the user
demand to this content in peak traffic loads [14]. The storing
of such content occurs in off-peak periods to alleviate the load
on the wireless and backhaul resources [15]. Advances in
context-awareness, social networks, storage, secure
communications, and D2D communications have a great
Figure 2 Densification Classification influence on the potential gain of content caching, and the
efficient use of resources in general [16][20]. The design of
B. Enabling Technologies caching schemes to be implemented in dense networks
To provide the ubiquitous connectivity and meet the 5G requires the understanding of the spatial and social structure
and beyond expectations, a plethora of technologies play a of such networks [14].
vital role. The following section discusses some of the
prominent technologies and associated challenges for network Following are different types of UDN;
densification. 1) Ultra-Dense HetNets
1) Software-Defined Network (SDN) Ultra-dense HetNets are densified network of
Software-Defined Network, reformulate the network heterogeneous access nodes which includes the traditional
architecture to integrate 5G and beyond needs, by high-power macrocells, low-power small cells and other non-
incorporating agility and flexibility to the existing network cellular communication systems like WLAN, D2D, LPWAN,
[23]. The ideology behind SDN is to separate the control plane etc. to meet the high demands for coverage and connectivity.
from the network hardware and articulate external data These networks have enhanced coverage, capacity and
controller. Network Densification through SDN deployment optimized exploitation of frequency resources through spatial
eliminates multiple infirmities like operational costs, energy reuse [20].
consumption, increased signalling overheads, backhaul, etc. 2) Ultra-Dense C-RANs
 Ultra-dense C-RANs are the densified network with a space. They break down a larger site footprint to several
cluster of Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) and Radio Frequency smaller cell sites and accommodate more users per unit area.
parts. RRHs are deployed at the baseband and the RF parts are
separated by connecting remote units [20]. Ultra-dense C- B. Types of Small Cells
RAN is a cost-effective network with improved spectral and Depending upon the decreasing transmit of the base station
energy efficiency due to the centralized resource allocation. power, antenna position and the region, small cells are referred
to as macro-, micro-, pico- and femto-cells; listed in order of
3) Ultra-Dense D2D Networks decreasing base station power [14] and summarized in Figure
Ultra-Dense D2D Network is the one with a large number 3.
of D2D enabled users. The data transmission is taking place
among the devices bypassing the base stations or core
network. The benefits of these networks are increased Spectral
and Energy Efficiency, reduced communication delay,
network load and power consumption [20].
C. Challenges
UDN is a network with sub-linear capacity growth, as the
base station density increases with an increase in the impact
of the interference. Interference is one of the major issues in
UDN as it becomes severe with high volatility [18]. Active
and idle cell states help in improving Energy Efficiency and
reducing interference. Optimal resource management in UDN
is critical. Failure in optimized resource allocation can lead to
high interference situations, which has the potential to trigger Figure 3 Types of Small Cells
issues like unbalanced load distributions, and higher power
consumption, etc. [11, 18]. Other challenges in UDN is C. Basic Architecture and Deployment
maintaining QoS with the mobility and handovers. In Multi Small cell hardware is discrete and energy-efficient. Small
RAT, QoS is challenging in the simultaneous connection in cell installation consists of small radio equipment and small
different RATs [24]. antennas and is usually placed on existing infrastructures such
as streetlights, the sides of buildings or poles. Small Cells can
III. SMALL CELL be deployed indoors and outdoors. Installation requires;
With the 4G LTE and upcoming 5G networks, small cell Power source; Backhaul connection to the core network; and
technology has evolved as one of the critical pieces [13]. It has Installation place. Small cells can be deployed broadly as
shown remarkable results in enhancing coverage and capacity Passive Distributed Antenna Systems, Active Distributed
in densely populated scenarios [3, 12]. These are low-powered Antenna Systems, Concealed integrated Metrocells or
Base Stations deployed at closer proximity to the user, unlike Multibeam Antennas and Sector Splitting [11, 15],
traditional macro Base Stations. Small cells intend to increase summarized in Figure 4.
capacity, improve network performance and service quality in
the areas remain in the outage [14] and complements
macrocells.
The prediction is that the number of small cells deployed
will grow exponentially in the coming years. The small cell
technology also provides solutions for outdoor network
densification. Small cell technology provides a cost-effective
network solution to eliminate the outages with enhances
bandwidth. They are one of the promising technology to make
room for 5G and beyond networks [12].
A. Key Characteristics
Small cell relates to a network having a dependable
coverage, enhanced spectral efficiency, improved capacity,
better user experience and performance. It is mainly deployed
to solve network capacity issues in the outage-subsets of the
macro base stations. Data transmission is improved in small
cells as they are capable of transmitting at different bands of
both licensed or unlicensed spectrum [11, 14]. This capability Figure 4 Small Cell Deployment
of reusing the available spectrum allows small cells to be
deployed in high density, increases the overall spectral D. Challenges
efficiency of the network in addition to the network bandwidth
and speed. These are integrated into the macro networks to Where, small cells complement the main macro base
spread traffic loads. Few of the other advantages of small cells station with extended functionalities, on the other hand, it
are that they are easy to install. Small cells draw less power, brings additional complexity to the network design. Small
thus the mobile handsets have extended battery life [13]. cells challenges are different from those of conventional
Small cell ensures seamless connectivity by occupying less towers. Identification of potential locations for deployment is
one of the key concerns with small cells. The well-equipped different users. It determines the efficiency of any scheme
network design team are responsible for identifying locations implemented for resource management or allocation [17].
and installations taking into consideration the location of
existing fibre and the physical application of the small cell V. OPEN RESEARCH AREAS
itself [15, 17]. The paradigm shift from the single base station A. Spectrum
(Macro stations) approach to ubiquitous connectivity with
small cells of hundreds of thousands of base stations, demands For Mobile Operators, Spectrum is the key asset and its
the network be transparently and securely across licensed and availability decides coverage. As the requirements are
unlicensed spectrums [14]. Some of the key challenges for defined, 5G design has to support a wide range of spectrum
small cells are Self-organization, backhauling, handover, and from 400MHz-90GHz irrespective of spectrum bands i.e.
interference. These challenges will be discussed in detail in licensed, unlicensed or shared [25]. Under mmWave, the
the following section concerning ultra-dense deployments. operating frequency is 24-30 GHz with a data rate of 5Gbps
and it estimated that higher frequencies will bring more
IV. PERFORMANCE METRICS spectrum. Increased spectrum allows users to have an
enhanced data rate of 10Gbps. Dealing with high frequency is
Following are some of the key performance metrics used
very critical because of the short propagation distances. Path
in modelling Small cells in ultra-dense networks.
loss is eminent in higher frequencies. Therefore, it is important
A. Coverage and Outage Probability to design adequate measurement devices and feasible
If the SINR (Signal-to-Interference-and-Noise-Ratio) of modelling schemes.
the randomly selected user in a network is above the threshold B. Self-organization
then it is termed as coverage probability or the success
The cell operations are dependant on self-organizing
probability. The SINR value, lower than the threshold value,
functionalities with picocells and femtocells, where operator
it is termed as Outage Probability and describes a situation of
supervision is not required [11]. Self-organising cells must
weak or no connectivity. These probabilities define the quality
consider various types of coexisting cells and the network
of the link between the user and the serving BS. This value is
parameters before deployment. The self-organizing capability
significantly associated with User Association [7],
of small cell networks can be generally classified into three
Propagation models [18] [26] and Estimation of the UDN
processes, and is summarized in Figure 5.
Economics [9] [26] [27].
B. Average Spectral Efficiency
Spectral Efficiency is defined as the average number of
transmitted bits per second per unit bandwidth. Spectrum
Efficiency is one of the critical performance metric in 5G
dense scenario as Spectrum is a scarce resource and demand
is increasing exponentially. The significance of this metric is
directly associated with User Associated [7] [26], Interference
management [29], Backhauling issues [17], Cost Estimations
[9] [27], etc.
C. Area Spectral Efficiency
Area Spectral Efficiency is defined as the average
achievable data rate per unit bandwidth per unit area. It is an
important metric to calibrate the performance of a densely
packed network. It is significantly associated in User
Associated [7], Propagation modelling [18] [26], Interference Figure 5 Self-Organizing Cell Types
Management [29] and Energy Efficiency [30] [31].
C. Backhauling
D. Network Throughput Backhaul network design in UDN environments is a major
It is defined as the average number of successfully issue because of the coexisting cells. Operators can not
transmitted bits per sec. per Hz. per unit area [31]. It is closely guarantee an ideal high-speed low-delay backhaul for each
associated with the calculation of Area spectral efficiency and small cell [9, 12]. For instance,
outage probability. Network throughput holds significance in
determining Energy efficiency [30] [31]. • Picocells require access to infrastructure with
power supply and wired network backhauling,
E. Energy Efficiency which may be potentially expensive.
The energy efficiency is a performance indicator that • Femtocells, with lower backhauling costs, may
compares the achievable rate to energy costs. It is defined as face difficulties in maintaining the quality of
network throughput to the power consumed per unit area [30]. service (QoS) since backhauls rely on
Energy Efficiency is significant in Interference Management consumers’ broadband connections.
[29], Backhauling issues [17], and Propagation modelling [18]
[26]. Therefore, network backhaul must be planned to yield
benefits in terms of costs and Quality of Service. Backhaul
F. Fairness technologies can be wireless or wired or both, with dedicated
It indicates the evaluation of a given cell association, interfaces to the core network [7-9, 11].
scheduling, or resource management scheme between
D. Handover ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Efficient Handover guarantees seamless uniform This work has received funding from the European
connectivity. It allows users’ free movement within and Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme
outside of the cell coverage. The probability of handover under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie ETN TeamUp5G, grant
failure increases the probability of user outage. It also helps in agreement No. 813391.
balancing the traffic load [9].
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