Performance Analysis of Joint Transmission CoMP Schemes for ABS Assisted Cellular Networks

An aerial base station (ABS) assisted cellular network is envisioned as a cheap and quick technology to provide connectivity in developing countries particularly in rural areas. ABSs provide strong line of sight links that cause severe interference in the network. We therefore analyse the performance of three joint transmission coordinated multipoint (JT CoMP) schemes for variable ABS altitude and density. These are fixed number, fixed region and interference aware JT CoMP. We apply CoMP only to the lower power base stations (BSs) that is small BSs and ABSs. Using simulations, we show that the JT CoMP schemes improve the coverage probability, average rate and energy efficiency of the network. Using a modified performance metric we show that interference aware JT CoMP gives the best performance in terms of cost which is determined by the cluster size. In this paper we also present practical considerations for the implementation of these JT CoMP schemes.