Interference Model for Cognitive Coexistence in

Cellular Systems
Theodoros Kamakaris, Didem Kivanc-Tureli and Uf Tureli
Wireless Network Security Center
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, NJ, USA
AbstractCognitive radio is a key enabling technology of dynamic spectrum access for exploiting unused spectrum resources.
This article focuses on modeling the opportunity for cellular
systems which have the greatest spectrum scarcity problem.
A system model is introduced for analyzing the opportunistic
bandwidth within a cellular network through a spatial evaluation
of the resources used by the primary and available to the
secondary systems. Towards this purpose, two metrics are introduced signifying the spatial coherence of resources: the region
of interference and the region of communications. Our results
suggest significant underutilized resources that can be scavenged
through secondary users to greatly improve the spectral efficiency
of cellular networks.

I. I NTRODUCTION
The concepts of cognitive radios and dynamic spectrum
access [1] have spearheaded the evolution of new paradigms
of interference aware multiple access and spectral reuse.
At the same time policy changes [2] allowing opportunistic
use enable new disruptive technologies as secondary systems
provide added value to legacy systems with accelerated time
to market evolution cycles. A market in dire need of such
accelerated evolution cycles is that of cellular telephony and
its imminent convergence to wireless data networks. Next generation networks (NGN) envision multi-network technologies
that provide always available, best-connected services. Along
this paradigm this article investigates the availability of underutilized spectral resources within the static infrastructure of a
cellular network for capacity expansion through opportunistic
spectral reuse.
NGN technologies ubiquitously converge to frequency reuse
of one to improve bandwidth efficiency, while increasing the
cell density is often the strategy for increasing system capacity.
However, the hub-and-spoke architecture along with the frequency division duplex (FDD) scheme and the power control
mechanisms employed allow for spectrum holes through the
exposed node effect. In the uplink channel, the bandwidth used
by a transmitting mobile remains unutilized in the antipodal
area of the cell due to power control. An opportunistic access
scheme for a secondary system with a dynamic operational
area of coverage (footprint), such as those proposed in [3]
and [4] can exploit such spectrum holes through low power adhoc networks which control their interference to the primary
system.
We note that our discussion for spectral reuse is significantly
different from the case of cognitive radio in TV bands. Since

the mobiles receive at different frequencies, their involvement

is limited to the interference they introduce to the secondary
system, therefore the footprints of the primary and secondary
system overlap, whilst in the TV bands scenario the systems
remain spatially orthogonal. Following we formalize and quantify the available opportunistic resources that such a secondary
system can exploit. We base our discussion on the geometric
analysis of an intuitive system model of the cellular network.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
We represent the cellular network with a hexagonal pattern
with the basestation (BS) located at the center of the hexagon
and the mobiles (MSs) uniformly distributed around them. We
assume that within the boundaries of a hexagon the MSs are
associated with the BS at its center. The system model is based
on the introduction of two new metrics to quantify the cellular
system resources that could be opportunistically scavenged by
a secondary system operating within the bounds of a cellular
network: The region of interference (RoI) signifies the spatial
coherence of resources around the location of a secondary
user (SU) and is a measure of the resource utilization seen by
the SU. The region of communications (RoC) is a measure
of the possible footprint the SU can have to utilize available
resources without interfering with the primary system (i.e. the
cellular network). These metrics are not related to specific
frequency, time or other parameters that might constitute the
cellular systems multiple access scheme, rather they represent
a ratio of the respective RoI, RoC areas over the total cell area.
Hence, we formulate the problem as a measure of the spatial
coherence of the cellular systems resources, whether those are
spectral channels, time slots or CDMA codes. As mentioned
at the introduction, we focus our discussion to the uplink of
the cellular system since out of the three identified sources of
opportunistic resources, the frequency division duplex scheme
is the only one still adhered to in next generation cellular
networks.
A. Region of Interference
Assuming a uniform distribution of the MSs across the
cell area, the interference seen by the SU can be estimated
as the ratio of the interfering area over the cell area. As
aforementioned, this measure of interference indicates the ratio
of available resources to the secondary user to those of the
primary user and can represent orthogonal frequency channels,

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time slots or CDMA codes, thus being applicable to any

multiple access mechanism. A key assumption on which we
base our system model is that typically mobiles employ power
control that effectively bounds their range to a radius equal to
their distance from the BS. We define the RoI for a specific
SU location within a cell as the area within which any MS
transmitting will make those resources (channels, timeslots,
etc.) unavailable to the SU. Consider the geometry shown in
Fig. 1, where the SU transmitter (SUT x ) is communicating to
the SU receiver (SURx ) with the same resources that the MS
is communicating to the BS within a cell.

d(MS,BS)

d(MS,SU)

d (M S, SURx ) d (M S, BS) < RC .

(5)

The problem becomes similar to that of finding the umbrella

diagram as defined in [5]. Let C(SU) be the polygon with
A sides, modeling the sensitivity range of the secondary
user receiver equal to the cell radius range. We define the
convex polygon Ii = H(BSi C(SU ) and we construct the
perpendicular bisector Li of BSi SU in Ii . Next we find the
intersections of the bisector line segments. Since the intersection is the circumcenter of the triangle (SU, BSi , BSi+1 ),
the bisector line segments Li and Li+1 (or their extensions)
intersect on the boundary of cells H(BSi ), H(BSi+1 ). If we
denote the polygon formed by the line segments Li as P (Li )
then RoISURx = P (Li ) C(SU ) as depicted in Fig. 2.

SUTx

BS

MS

to the assumed power control strategy, then for the MS to

interfere with the SU, the following inequality must hold:

SURx

RoI
C(SU)

BS0

Fig. 1.

L0

BS1

Opportunistic spectrum users in a cellular network

L1

SU

X
PRx
,

PTXx

Let
denote the power received at and transmitted
from X respectively, and let d(X, Y ) denote the distance of
X to Y. Assuming a distance-power gradient , the power
BS
) is:
received by the BS (PRx
BS
PRx

PTMxS

MS
BS
=
PT x = PRx d (M S, BS) . (1)
d (M S, BS)

L2
L3

BS3

BS2

For SURx to decode received signals with an interference free

range R:
Tx
PTSU
x

PTMxS
+ N0
d (M S, SURx )

Fig. 2.

>

Tx
PTSU
x
.
N0 R

(2)

From equations 1 and 2 we can obtain an expression relating

d (M S, SURx ) and d (M S, BS) with R > D as follows:




N0
R
d (M S, BS)

1
>
(3)
,
BS
D
d (M S, SURx )
PRx
that is equivalent to:
d (M S, SURx )
d (M S, BS) <
SN RBS


R
1 .
D

Region of Interference

The high level algorithm to compute the area of RoI for any
SU location with respect to the area of H(BSi ) is described
below:
FOR SU H(BS0 ) :
FIND BSi where C(SU ) H(BSi ) = 0
COMPUTE R(BSi ) such that:
M Si H(BSi ), d(SU,M Si ) d(BSi , M Si )
COMPUTE RoI(SU ) = ( i R(BSi )) (C(SU ))
B. Region of Communications

(4)

Given a random SU location within the area of adjacent cells

with centers at BS0,...BS3, C(SU) signifies the maximum RoI
in the case all MSs transmit at their full range equal to that
of the cell radius (RC). If we constrain their range according

Due to the advantageous positioning of the BS in a cellular

system along with the fact that there are constant transmissions
on the downlink, it is possible to determine a maximum
power allowed for which the SU would be operating below
the interference range of the BS. A straightforward approach
would be to measure the relative downlink path loss from each

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BS, assume a conservative uplink path loss and transmit at

power levels that do not increase the Signal to Interference
Noise Ratio (SINR) seen at the BS for the MSs. This implies
that the range of the SUs transmission is proportional to
its distance from the BS. Since we cannot know the distribution of the MSs across the adjacent BSs, the SU must
constrain its transmission to a range less than the distance
of the closest BS. We introduce the metric of region of
communication to indicate the area within which an SU can
effectively communicate to another SU. This is similar to
the bidirectional communications range, taking into account
the transmission power limitations imposed by the BSs in
proximity. As before, we define the polygon P (Li ) as the
region from which the transmission range of other secondary
users can reach SU without increasing the SINR of adjacent
BSs. Then we define R(SU ) as the polygon with A
sides that encloses the transmission range of SUT x . Then
RoCSUT x = P (Li ) R(SU ) depicted in Fig. 3.

0 dB for communicating. Therefore we need to adjust both

RoI and RoC as a function of the operational SNR and SINR
respectively. We assume the following path loss model [6]: Let
the received signal power Pr be proportional to the distance,
raised to the distance-power gradient such that:


d
Pr
=
,
(6)
P0
d0
where P0 is the received power at a reference distance d0 and
varies typically from: 2 (free space loss), 3 (suburban) or
4 (urban environment). Then, the path loss (LP ) is given by:
d
,
(7)
d0
where L0 is the path loss at reference distance d0 . In Fig. 2,3
we depict the RoI and RoC with boundaries at 0 dB SNR and
0 dB SINR respectively. Fig. 4,5 illustrate the adjusted RoI
and RoC for SNR and SINR greater than 0 which correspond
to range adjustments by a factor of dd0 across the dimensions
of C(SU ), R(SU ) and P (Li ).
LP = L0 + 10 log

RoC

C'(SU)
L0
BS1

BS0

L'0
L1

SU

SU

R(SU)

L'1

L2

RoI'

L3

L'2
BS3

BS2

Fig. 3.

L'3

Region of Communications

The high level algorithm to compute the area of RoC for any
SU location with respect to the area of H(BSi ) is described
below:
FOR SU H(BS0 ) :
FIND BSi where R(SU ) H(BSi ) = 0
COMPUTE R(BSi ) such that:
M Si ) d(BSi , M Si )
M Si H(BSi ), d(SU,
COMPUTE RoC(SU ) = ( i R(BSi )) (R(SU ))
C. SNR adjustment to RoI, RoC
In the above discussion we have assumed perfect power
control for MS to BS and SU to BS with 0 dB SNR at the
boundaries. However, the mobiles operate at higher SN R >
0dB, and similarly the SUs would require SINR greater than

Fig. 4.

SNR adjusted Region of Interference

For the Region of Interference, the lines Li now bisect BSi SU

in Ii such that:
d
d (Li , SURx ) (8)
points L
i : d (L
i , SURx ) =
d0
and
d
RC
(SU ) =
RC(SU ) .
(9)
d0
For the Region of Communications, the lines Li now bisect
BSi SU in Ii such that:
d0
d (Li , SURx ) (10)
points L
i : d (L
i , SURx ) =
d

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BS0

R'(SU)

L'0

RoC'
SU

L'3

L'1

L'2

Fig. 6.
Region of Interference normalized to the Cell Area at 0 dB
SN RM SBS

Fig. 5.

SNR adjusted Region of Communications

and
RC
(SU ) =

d0
RC(SU ) .
d

(11)

Since d0 is set to be the the reference distance at which the

RoI SNR and RoC SINR are zero, we can relate the range
adjustment to the operational SNR from the Path Loss equation
as follows:


d
(12)
{SN R, SIN R} = LP L0 = 10 log
d0

given the ability of the BS to have increased gain through

modulation (CDMA, SS) or advanced antenna configurations
(Beamforming, MIMO) that further improve the Path Loss
characteristics of the MS to BS transmission, reducing the
interference to and from the secondary user. Assuming that
Mobile Stations will always connect to the closest BS, which is
equivalent to the assumption of uniform distribution, the above
discussion becomes valid for any frequency reuse pattern,
where the hexagonal bounds become boundaries enclosing the
MSs for each BS. It is noticeable that the expected available
resources quickly diminish with more realistic power control
strategies of 5 dB and higher.

For a more analytic discussion on the relation of the distance

and the power between the secondary user and the primary
system we refer the reader to [7].

0.9

III. S IMULATION R ESULTS

0.7

Fig. 6 illustrates the simulation results of the RoI algorithm

across one cell when the power control strategy of the primary
system is 0 dB (SN RBSM S = 0 dB). The grayscale
color scheme represents the RoI normalized to the total cell
area and exhibits an interesting pattern due to the effect of
the hexagonal representation. The RoI varies less than 6%
across the entire cell area and we expect it to be more
homogeneous across the cell in a real world cellular system.
The interpretation of the figure below would suggest that with
a cellular system operating at minimal SNR, with perfect
power control and at full capacity, at any given location
within the cell, less than 50% of the total resources are
utilized. Fig. 7 illustrates the effect of different power control
strategies as a function of SNR for different power-distance
gradients (). The computation for negative SNR is justified

Mean RoI

A. Region of Interference

0.8

0.6
0.5
0.4
=2
=3
=4

0.3
0.2
0.1
10

Fig. 7.

0
5
SNRBSMS (dB)

10

15

Average RoI across Cell vs. SN RBSM S

B. Region of Communications
Fig. 8 illustrates the simulation results of the RoC
algorithm across one cell at SU to SU SINR equal to 0

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=2
=3
=4
d =.3Rc
d =.6Rc
d =.9Rc

0.8
0.7
0.6
RoC

dB. The figure depicts the ratio of RoC over the Cell Area
which is proportional to the square of the distance from
the basestation. Fig. 9 depicts how the RoC varies as a the
distance between the BS and the SU transmitter increases,
and how it would vary without the constraining region of
P (Li ). The P (Li ) constrain ensures that only the area within
which an SU can receive as well as transmit to another SU is
calculated given the power control limits to avoid interference
with the cellular system.

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
10

0
SINR

SU

5
(dB)

10

Fig. 10. RoC vs. SIN RSU SU at BS to SU distance of 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9
of the Cell Radius

IV. C ONCLUSIONS

Fig. 8. Region of Communications normalized to the Cell Area at 0 dB

SIN RSU SU

0.8
With Li constraint
Without Li constraint

0.7

R EFERENCES

RoC Area

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0

Fig. 9.

We have formalized and simulated two metrics for assessing the opportunistic resources available to secondary
users within a cellular system. We have evaluated that the
available resources on the uplink are significant regardless of
the location within the cell, yet greatly depend on the cellular
systems power control strategy and propagation environment.
The communication range of a secondary user is significantly
reduced as the user approaches the basestation. Strategies to
overcome this limitation might include the availability of out
of band channels used only for users very close to the BS
or spread spectrum underlay modulation schemes that could
operate at negative SINR.

0.2

0.4
0.6
d(BS,SUTx)

0.8

RoC with increasing distance of the SU transmitter from the BS

Fig. 10 depicts how the RoC varies as a function of the

operational SINR for SU to SU communications. Three
different distances from the BS are considered at 0.3, 0.6 and
0.9 of the total Cell Radius and for varying power-distance
gradients.

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This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts for publication in the IEEE GLOBECOM 2007 proceedings.