CoMP Cell Grouping for Interference Mitigation

The invention divides the network into multiple CoMP cells, each with its own central unit that independently performs scheduling and interference coordination. This segmentation eliminates the need for a single high-capacity global backhaul channel, as each local central unit only needs to coordinate within its own CoMP cell boundaries, reducing backhaul requirements while maintaining interference suppression capabilities.

The invention creates a hierarchical coordination structure where multiple small cells are nested within larger CoMP cells, and multiple CoMP cells are coordinated through their respective central units. This nested architecture allows ad hoc coordination to operate effectively at the small cell level while the central units provide coordinated management at the CoMP cell level, enabling coordination to scale from local to regional levels without gaps.

The invention implements feedback mechanisms where central units of neighboring CoMP cells exchange scheduling information and interference measurements. This feedback allows each CoMP cell to adjust its scheduling decisions based on the actual interference impact on neighboring cells, particularly at border areas. The iterative feedback process enables continuous optimization of interference coordination across CoMP cell boundaries.

The invention segments the global coordination function into distributed central units, each responsible for a specific CoMP cell. This segmentation achieves near-global optimization performance by enabling coordinated multi-point transmission and reception across multiple cells, while avoiding the complexity and communication overhead of a single global central unit. Each central unit makes locally optimal decisions that collectively achieve global performance.