Performance Analysis of an Energy-Efficient Clustering Algorithm for Coordination Networks

The mechanism of Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) can improve the spectral efficiency of the 4G and 5G cellular network, and also can reduce transmitting power of base stations (BSs). However, CoMP requires a large amount of energy due to extra signal processing and backhaul traffic. In this paper, an energy-efficient algorithm based on optimal dynamic clustering mechanism (ODCEM) for CoMP networks is proposed, which aims to minimize the overall network energy consumption. In the ODCEM, cells are pre-ordered in descending order according to their traffic load increments. The cell with lowest load increment is selected to switch off. Then, users in selected cell are handed over to other neighboring cells if quality of service (QoS) for users can be guaranteed. After that, the selected cell is switched off to conserve network energy. The remaining cells in each CoMP cluster will be evaluated after the previous order is updated. The simulation results show that the energy efficiency of ODCEM schemes is significantly higher than that of fixed CoMP algorithm in terms of SINR and traffic loads. Furthermore, the ODCEM algorithm can achieve better energy efficiency with lower computational complexity according to the performance evaluation of user association and BS switching off.