Transmit Beamforming in Dense Networks-A Review

Abstract

Communication technology has prospered in manifolds over the last decade. The scarcity of spectrum as well as the demand for higher data rates and increase in capacity has become a matter of concern. Newer technologies have evolved time and again, the latest of which is Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Long Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) systems more commonly known as 4G technology. The striking feature of LTE/LTE-A is the deployment of smaller cells (femto cells) in the vicinity of a large macro cells resulting in a dense network. As a result the data rate as well as capacity has increased in manifolds but the detrimental factor is the issue of interference between the various cells. Beamforming provides a solution in removing the issues of interference in dense networks. This paper focuses on the interference scenario in LTE dense networks and gives an overview of different beamforming methods that can provide a solution to the interference problem. Further, a review of several such methods so far proposed in available literature has been presented in this paper.

Keywords:LTE/LTE-A, Dense Network, Interference,Beamforming