Localization of Interference Sources in LTE Mobile Networks

Interference seriously affects wireless signal transmission and degrades the quality of services in LTE mobile communication networks. In a dense urban environment, extra-network interference signals undergo multipath and non-light-of-sight propagation, and it is urgent but difficult for network operators to localize the interference sources quickly and accurately. This paper proposes a method of using propagation path analysis to localize extra-network interference sources. The method selects the measurement points with strong received signal strengths from frequency-sweeping measurement reports, employs reverse ray tracing to generate possible line-of-sight, non-line-of-sight, and multipath signal propagation trajectories between the candidate inference sources and the measurement points, and then takes multi-objective optimization to position the interference sources. We use practical LTE network data to conduct simulations to evaluate the proposed localization scheme. The results show that in a dense urban environment, the path-analysis-based interference localization can achieve positioning accuracy with deviation within 50 meters and therefore provides an efficient means for interference troubleshooting in LTE networks.