Energy efficiency improvement in multi-cell networks with binary power control

A multi-cell wireless network with full spectrum reuse is considered. The energy efficiency of the entire network is evaluated based on a predefined cost function. The energy consumption per bit (J/bit) is used as the evaluation metric. A method is proposed to improve the energy efficiency (EE) of the network employing cell coordination. The main idea is to get an insight on the EE of wireless networks and how to improve that of the network by using a binary power control mechanism. A SINR threshold is calculated based on the number of cells and channel gains of the network. Using binary power control, the users who do not obtain the required SINR are kept silent for a period of time until they get good channel conditions. It is then shown that this criterion outperforms the orthogonal resource allocation scheme and random cell switch off scheme. Finally, it is observed that the number of coordinating cells in a cluster is EE limited. Hence it can be used to determine the number of cells that should be operated inside a single cluster when binary power control is employed. The results obtained can be used as upper bounds for initial calibration of a practically implemented system.