Enhancing Downlink QoS and Energy Efficiency Through a User-Centric Stienen Cell Architecture for mmWave Networks

This paper presents an analytical framework for performance characterization of a novel Stienen cell based user-centric architecture operating in millimeter wave spectrum. In the proposed architecture, at most one remote radio head (RRH) is activated within non overlapping user equipment (UE)-centric Stienen cells (S-cells) generated within the Voronoi region around each UE. Under the presented framework, we derive analytical models for the three key performance indicators (KPIs): i) SINR distribution (used as an indicator for quality of service (QoS)), ii) area spectral efficiency (ASE), and iii) energy efficiency (EE) as a function of the three major design parameters in the proposed architecture, namely UE service probability, S-cell radius coefficient and RRH deployment density. The analysis is validated through extensive Monte Carlo simulations. The simulation results provide practical design insights into the interplay among the three design parameters, tradeoffs among the three KPIs, sensitivity of each KPI to the design parameters as well as optimal range of the design parameters. Results show that compared to current non user-centric architectures, the proposed architecture not only offers significant SINR gains, but also the flexibility to meet diverse UE specific QoS requirements and trade between EE and ASE by dynamically orchestrating the design parameters.