Avoidance of Co-channel interference using switched parasitic array antenna in femtocell networks

Abstract

Femtocells are low-cost and low-power cellular home base stations that connect mobile users to a operator's network by means of a broadband backhaul. Through this approach, the network operators can extend indoor coverage at a low-cost and reduce the operating cost. However, there exists a co-channel interference between macrocell and femtocells when they use the same frequency band. This co-channel interference causes severe performance degradation of femtocells and macrocell. Therefore, we propose a novel scheme to reduce the co-channel interference to macrocell without performance degradation of femtocells. The proposed scheme avoids the co-channel interference to macrocell users effectively using the SPA antenna which offers 8-directions to control the antenna beam pattern and transmitting power. Performance evaluation results have confirmed that the proposed scheme reduces the co-channel interference by 80% compared to the case using omni-directional antenna. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.