Dynamic Frame Reconfiguration in LTE TDD Small Cell Networks

Traffic demands of mobile radio networks have been tremendously increasing in the recent years due to the enormous success of smart phones and continuing evolution of their features supporting applications with high data rates. As we are entering the world of Internet of Things (IoT), where everything is connected to each other, from trash bins to cars, these demands are expected to grow much faster. It is foreseen that the mobile data traffic will increase a thousand fold between now and 2020. Heterogeneous networks consisting of low-power small cells underlying the existing macro cells represent the preferred solution to increase the capacity of cellular systems by means of spatial spectrum reuse. Static uplink/downlink time-division duplexing (TDD) configurations of existing networks cannot satisfy the varying traffic patterns of large number of small cells, which vary among cells and over time.;In this dissertation, a novel algorithmic framework for dynamic reconfiguration of TDD frames is proposed for cluster-based small cell networks. The proposed solution is characterized by low algorithmic time complexity which allows for instantaneous network-wise reconfiguration adapting to highly dynamic traffic demands of small cells.;The contribution of this dissertation research lies in the area of resource manage- ment through minimizing the interferences caused by simultaneous transmissions of uplink and downlink sub-frames among nearby small cells. This work is the first to carry out an algorithmic study of the problem of dynamic frame reconfiguration. The developed solutions are novel and hold significant promises as ultra dense small cell deployments are likely to become viable approach on spatial spectrum reuse. The superiority of the proposed solution is demonstrated theoretically and experimentally.