Performance Analysis of Heterogeneous Networks in the presence of Deliberate Jammers using Reverse Frequency Allocation

Abstract

Future wireless communication networks are envisioned as multi-tier Hetnets, where small base stations (sBSs) are strategically deployed within the macro base station’s (mBS) coverage area. This deployment strategy aims to optimize spectrum utilization and, consequently, minimize coverage gaps. Nevertheless, the performance of Hetnets is notably compromised by the presence of inter-cell interference (ICI). Moreover, the performance is further degraded when a deliberate jammer is used by an attacker having adequate information about the network parameters. The extent to which the performance can be degraded highly depends on the proximity of the jammer from the target as well as its transmit power. In HetNets, mBS has higher transmit power as compared to the sBS. Therefore, many users connect to the mBS resulting in an unbalanced load distribution.In order to achieve load balancing, users originally connected to the mBS are redirected to the sBS. However, this transition introduces interference in the communication due to the high transmit power of the mBS. Hence, we need interference management techniques that countermeasure the interference effect in the network as well as user association techniques for efficiently available resource utilization. This study proposes reverse frequency allocation (RFA) for Hetnets with deliberate jammers. RFA has been found to be an efficient solution for alleviating the effect of ICI and deliberate jammer interference (DJs-I). The available band in RFA is divided into sub-bands which are dis-jointly used by the mBS and the sBS in disjoint regions. RFA, therefore, efficiently reduces interference in the HetNets as well as accomplishing loading balancing. The proposed system model deploying RFA in the presence of DJs has been evaluated both analytically and with the assistance of simulation. Simulation outcomes show that our proposed solution has improved uplink (UL) coverage performance due to high interference mitigation (i.e., DJs-I and ICI) and load balancing as compared to the systems without RFA.