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Downlink and Uplink Decoupling in Heterogeneous Networks for 5G and Beyond

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Journal of Communications and Information Networks

Abstract

To meet the explosively increased data traffic demand from 5G and beyond, one of the most promising technologies is densified heterogeneous networks (HetNets). In HetNets, base stations (BSs) are brought closer and closer to users by densifying small BSs, which results in considerable high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency for cellular systems. However, HetNet topology challenges the traditional cellular systems. One of the most important challenges is user association. Aiming to avoid the drawback brought by coupled access (CA) in user association of HetNets, a decoupled access (DA) approach has emerged recently. By allowing access points in uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) association to be different, DA significantly improves UL performance of HetNets. This article focuses on recent works in DA. First, typical scenarios of HetNets for DA are described, which is followed by presenting two major decoupled association policies under typical scenarios. Then, DA shows its superiority over CA under different scenarios and decoupled association policies via various performance metrics. Finally, future work on DA in HetNets is discussed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Xin Liu, Ran Li, Kai Luo & Tao Jiang

Authors
  1. Xin Liu
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  2. Ran Li
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  3. Kai Luo
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  4. Tao Jiang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kai Luo.

Additional information

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61531011). The associate editor coordinating the review of this paper and approving it for publication was S. Jin.

Xin Liu received his B.E. degree from Wuhan University of Technology, China, in 2017. Now he is working toward an M.S. degree in the School of Electronic Information and Communications at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. His research interests are in the fields of user association in heterogeneous networks and signal processing in radar communications.

Ran Li received her B.E. degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, in 2015. Now she is working toward an M.S. degree in the School of Electronic Information and Communications at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Her research interests are in the fields of user association in heterogeneous networks and MIMO communications.

Kai Luo (M’14) [corresponding author] received his B.Eng. degree from the School of Electronics Information and Communications, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2006, and his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London, U.K. in 2013. From 2013 to 2014, he was a Research Associate of the Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. He is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Electronic Information and Communications, Huazhong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include MIMO communications, ultra-dense networks, massive MIMO and array signal processing, etc.

Tao Jiang (M’06, SM’10) is currently a Distinguished Professor in the School of Electronics Information and Communications, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. He received his Ph.D. degree in information and communication engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, P. R. China, in April 2004. From Aug. 2004 to Dec. 2007, he worked in some universities, such as Brunel University and University of Michigan-Dearborn. He has authored or co-authored about 300 technical papers in major journals and conferences and 9 books/chapters in the areas of communications and networks. He has been serving as a symposium technical program committee member of some major IEEE conferences, including INFOCOM, GLOBECOM, ICC, etc. He was invited to serve as TPC Symposium Chair for the IEEE GLOBECOM 2013, IEEEE WCNC 2013 and ICCC 2013. He has been serving as associate editor of some technical journals in communications, including in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, and he is the associate editor-in-chief of China Communications, etc. He is a recipient of the NSFC for Distinguished Young Scholars Award in 2013, and he is a senior member of IEEE.

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Liu, X., Li, R., Luo, K. et al. Downlink and Uplink Decoupling in Heterogeneous Networks for 5G and Beyond. J. Commun. Inf. Netw. 3, 1–13 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41650-018-0023-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41650-018-0023-4

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