Proceedings of the 8th IEEE GCC Conference and Exhibition, Muscat, Oman, 1-4 February, 2015
Practical Performance Evaluation of Coordinated
Multi-Point (CoMP) Networks
Application to Saudi Arabia
Ali H. Muqaibel
Electrical Engineering Department
King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM)
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
muqaibel@kfupm.edu.sa
AbstractIn Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) networks, Base
Stations (BSs) cooperatively process User Equipment (UE)
connected to multi-points to eliminate the inter-cell interference.
CoMP networks convert the interference signal into useful
information by controlling the interfering signals among adjacent
cells. This is important for UEs at the cell edge. This paper
examines practical deployment of CoMP and investigates its
enhancement to the spectral efficiency and Signal-to-Interference
and Noise Ratio (SINR) in practical inter-site and intra-site CoMP
scenarios. We consider the topography and terrain data of Al-
Khobar city in Saudi Arabia to evaluate the received power and
SINR behavior and estimate the SINR improvement in practical
CoMP networks.
Keywordsclustering; CoMP; Coordinated Multipoint.
I. INTRODUCTION
Demands for mobile communications services and higher
data rates are increasing day by day, which is a serious concern
for network operators. Research and development departments
in telecom operators and vendors have been working on finding
higher spectral efficiency network solutions to meet the huge
data traffic and required quality of service. Frequency reuse is
one of the solutions to satisfy high data rate demands and at the
same time reduces the interference, which limits the
performance of cellular systems. Even with frequency reuse,
other problems persist like the inter-cell interference which
limits the cell edge User Equipment (UE) data rates.
Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) is an advanced wireless
mechanism in mobile communication transmission and
reception which proposes a better solution to overcome the
inter-cell interference and enhance the cell edge data rates [1].
In CoMP technology, Base Stations (BSs) connect the UE
to multipoint in a coordinated way to cooperatively eliminate
the inter-cell interference. CoMP transmission enhances the
network average data rate and increases the spectral efficiency
[2]. Coordinated BSs exchange information about the received
signals from the served UE. This information is needed to
perform multi-cell joint signal processing [3]. The UE can be
served cooperatively from more than one BS which enhances
The authors acknowledge the support by King Fahd University of
Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM)
978-4799-8422-0/15/$31.002015 IEEE
Ayham N. Jadallah
Operation and Maintenance Department
Mobily
Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia
a.jadallah.wic@mobily.com.sa
the performance at the cost of additional overhead data bits and
huge backhaul infrastructure [1]. The network is enabled to
transmit in a cooperating way to eliminate inter-cell
interference under ideal conditions of perfect time and
frequency synchronization, as well as short delay for
exchanging data and Channel State Information (CSI) [4]. Yong
Cheng and others proposed an optimal approach to tradeoff
between the gain and the overhead of CoMP systems [5].
Each group of coordinated antennas in CoMP forms a
cluster which jointly serves a group of UEs. In general, the
number of the clusters coordinated cells is limited due to
synchronization factors, signal overhead and the availability of
extended fiber connection between BSs [6]. Clustering can be
intra-site or inter-site. An inter-site cluster is formed across
sites. Intra-site CoMP is desirable because it does not incur
extra backhaul data exchange [7]. If a sector is participating in
more than one cluster then we have overlapping clusters
otherwise the clustering is non-overlapping.
Choosing the coordination cluster antennas depends on
many factors such as distance between antennas, transmitted
power level, UEs locations and number of coordinated antennas
per cluster. The optimum selection of cluster cells is reflected
on the cellular systems spectral efficiency improvement.
Clustering can also be categorized into static and dynamic
clustering. Cells cluster distribution in static clustering is
selected one time according to pre-defined deployments that
uses the site location and site radio frequency parameters as
main characteristics in forming fixed clusters. Static clustering
requires little signals overhead and less complex compared to
dynamic clustering [8]. A major disadvantage for a given UE
with static cell clustering mechanism occurs when the cells that
have the strongest link gain may not lie in the same cluster [9].
These cells would then cause strong interference. Dynamic
clustering can solve these issues. March et al. in [10] discussed
ideal and practical clustering layouts to show how static
clustering can yield a performance close to the ideal clustering.
SINR is one of the main aspects that should be optimized in
any wireless communication system. Micheal Grieger et al.
 Proceedings of the 8th IEEE GCC Conference and Exhibition, Muscat, Oman, 1-4 February, 2015

evaluated the system performance in terms of the SINR of the

equalized transmit signals [11]. In [12] the authors evaluated the
SINR performance in LTE-Advanced system at UEs for two
different intra-cell CoMP schemes.
Many publications have shown how CoMP mitigates
interference and improves both the data rate and the spectral
efficiency in ideal networks. Patrick Marsch, Gerhard Fettweis
and Michael Grieger considered practical CoMP field trials [1],
[2], [8], [11], and [6]. There is definitely a need for more
practical research with different topologies. This paper
examines clustering in practical deployment of CoMP. It
investigates how CoMP communications can enhance the
spectral efficiency and SINR in inter-site and intra-site CoMP
scenarios. We consider real city topography and terrain data to
simulate the received power and SINR behavior and estimate
the SINR improvement.
This paper is organized as follows. In section II, we present
the ideal and the used practical system models. Performance Fig. 1. Ideal network layout
analysis is conducted using SINR as main performance criteria.
In Section III, clustering is addressed for the ideal scenario. The
Path-loss is affected by the antenna gain, atmospheric
impact of the cluster size is examined. In Section IV, Al-Khobar
conditions and multipath effects. We consider a flat-plane path-
network is evaluated in the presence of inter-site, and intra-site
loss, , model [10]:
cooperation. The paper is concluded in Section V.

II. IDEAL AND PRACTICAL SYSTEM MODELS = 130.5 + 37.6 log10 ( ) [dB] (1)

This part presents two different system models. In the ideal where refers to the distance between the UE and the BS. The
system model, we address some important parameters such as path-loss exponent in equation (1) equals to 3.76 assuming
path-loss, antenna pattern and SINR; while we focus on the shadowed urban areas.
practical aspects in the real system model such as BSs
information, terrain data and different configuration parameters The antenna pattern depends on the angle, , between the
for antennas and UEs. This is the information needed to antenna azimuth and UE, the front-to-back ratio of the antenna
evaluate the SINR for comparison between coordinated and and the maximum possible attenuation (), and the 3dB main
non-coordinated scenarios. lobe beam-width, 3 . The antenna pattern equation can be
Ideal models are simulated based on the hexagonal setup defined as in [10]:
using Matlab while the practical network is simulated using 2
ray tracing simulation tool called WinProp . Both setups () = (12 | | , ) [dB] (2)
3
consist of a set of BSs/sites, each one has three directive
antennas/sectors and each directive antenna basically serves The number of sectors per BS is affected by the values
one cell through the entire network. of 3 and . In our case, each BS consists of 3 sectors with
an antenna gain equals to 14 dB where 3 and Am are 70
A. Ideal Network Model
degrees and 20 dB respectively. Each sector has directional
In the considered ideal network layout, each BS serves three antennas with 120-degree beam-width.
hexagonal cells using three directive antennas. Each antenna
covers one cell area, and the azimuth for each antenna is Cellular communication systems generate various types of
beaming 120 degrees out of phase from the neighboring antenna interference such as inter-cell and co-channel. CoMP technique
in the same BS. We considered three hexagonal tiers network improves the UEs SINR values and reduces the interference at
which have 37 BSs, and each one consists of three different cell edge, where appropriate network optimization that care
sectors making a total number of 111 sectors. about choosing the coordinated sectors in CoMP systems can
Fig. 1 shows the ideal network setup where each unique color enhance the network efficiently. We are considering UEs and
refers to one BS that consists of three cells. Following 3rd cells. The experienced SINR by a UE from the serving
Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards, we fix the cluster ` is formulated as:
Inter Site Distance (ISD) to 500 m as we are considering an


urban area with macro BSs. Serving cell selection criteria
= (3)
{/ 2
} +
depends on UE downlink received power. Hence, the UE will
be served from the sector which supports this UE with the
highest Received Signal Level (RSL).
 Proceedings of the 8th IEEE GCC Conference and Exhibition, Muscat, Oman, 1-4 February, 2015

where is the path gain for the UE served from the cell m. TABLE I. PRACTICAL MODEL PARAMETERS
is the BS transmitted power and 2 is the UE noise variance.
The summation in the denominator is over the non-coordinated Parameters Value
BSs, {/}. By considering that each UE is served by
Layout 20 sites with 3 cells (sectors)
one cluster `. The UE j path gain from cell m, , is directly
ISD 500 m (in average)
related to the received power, Pr . The received power can be Carrier Frequency 2.6 GHz
calculated as: Bandwidth 20 MHz
UE Noise Figure 6 dB
Pr = ( ) [] (4) Antenna Gain 11.6 dBi
Resolution of 81 m
prediction results
where and ( ) are the path-loss and directional loss Sampling rate 384/250
from cell to UE , respectively. Subcarrier spacing 15 KHz
Symbol duration 66.67 usec
Separation between 120 MHz
B. Real Practical Network Uplink and Downlink
The chosen practical network data represents a unique Max Tx power 40 dBm
BS antenna height 17 - 35 m
topography from Al-Khobar city in Saudi Arabia that was not
used in previous CoMP research. The elevation topography of
this coastal city is flat and close to the sea level. We consider
20 BSs and 60 directive sectors. The distribution of these BSs
software are used to simulate the real setup. We simulated 20
depends on practical network implementation with non-
BSs using one of the LTE frequencies which is 2.6 GHz and 20
uniform ISD. We simulated Frequency Division Duplex (FDD)
MHz for bandwidth, and the ISD is non-uniform because we
Long-Term Evolution (LTE) air interface network with 20
are using real BSs locations. Each sector maximum transmitted
MHz bandwidth using Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output-
power is 40 dBm which is a reasonable level of power that can
Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (MIMO-
be used in urban or suburban networks. Table I briefs the used
OFDMA). This technology requires a precise propagation
parameters. These parameters are feed to the propagation
model to estimate the network interference.
modeling software.
Choosing UE serving cell in this model depends on the
highest received power of all carriers in the network and the III. CLUSTERING IN IDEAL COMP NETWORKS
minimum required SINR. We fixed two threshold for these two
One major concern in the coordination is how group of BSs
parameters.
and UEs can be selected. Choosing appropriate clustering can
Fig. 2 shows the satellite view of the real system model using reduce the experienced interference between the sectors.
Google Earth. Each 4-digit number in the figure refers to one
Assigning the coordinated sectors inside each cluster, choosing
real BS as categorized in the network database. Serving areas clustering type and cluster size are the most important aspects
in real network are unequal in size due to the different locations
in clustering selection. Clustering selection is easier in ideal
of antennas, antennas height, environment, interference, BS
CoMP networks compared with practical ones because of the
elevation and transmitted power level. uniformness of BSs and UEs distribution which give more
Original Digital Elevation (ODE) generated by Shuttle Radar flexibility in clustering design.
Topography Mission (SRTM) and a Ray tracing design We applied the two optimization criteria in [10]; maximize
mean SINR and outage measure probability. We investigated
non-overlapped and overlapped static clustering techniques.
The initial clusters are selected according to a quality
function passing through a number of steps. The first step is to
assign one serving cluster to each UE where each cluster
consists of 3 different sectors. We calculate the received power
to each UE from all the 111 sectors. Then we find out the sectors
that provide the highest three received power values to a
specific UE, and those three sectors will form one initial cluster.
Hence, the number of clusters basically in this step is equal to
the number of UEs and we called those clusters as initial
clusters.
Some of the initial clusters are common to different UEs. The
Fig. 2. Satellite view of the practical network model of Al-Khobar second step is to rank the initial clusters according to their
 Proceedings of the 8th IEEE GCC Conference and Exhibition, Muscat, Oman, 1-4 February, 2015
occurrence, where the most frequent clusters are the most
desired ones. The number of occurrences is subject to some
constraints such as the number of UEs, UEs location, BSs
locations and UEs density distribution. The third step is to
cancel the repeated clusters and keep only one copy from each
cluster so we have unique clusters.
The optimization of maximizing mean SINR or outage
measure depends on the initial clusters and the number of
simulated UEs . In our case, simulating 441 UEs in the non-
overlapped clustering leads to 263 unique clusters. Increasing
assures that all network cells are included in the initial clusters.
However, increasing linearly, results in an exponential
increase in the simulation complexity. We decreased this
complexity by simulating specific granularity from the entire
network. We used a simulated granularity equals to one quarter
of the entire network that uses 400 UEs distributed in the
granularity. In this case, we got 89 unique clusters out of the
total 400 initial clusters.
In optimization outage probability, Fig. 3 demonstrates the
SINR CDF differences between clusters with different number
of coordinated cells using 1600 UEs in the ideal system model.
Cluster size is an important factor to determine the UE
experienced SINR level. The experienced SINR level increases
when the number of coordinated sectors inside a cluster
increases, whilst increasing the cluster size increases the system
signal overhead and complexity. The largest SINR
improvement is when the cluster size is changed from 2 to 3
cells. The cluster size advantage is less significant, when the
cluster size is increased from 4 to 5 coordinated cells. The gain
starts to saturate as the cluster size exceeds 6.
IV. CLUSTERING IN PRACTICAL COMP NETWROKS
We applied different optimization criteria in the ideal model
where the system is more flexible to accept changes because
sites and UEs in that model are somehow systematic. Applying
a standard optimization criterion for real network is more
complex due to different conditions such as; elevation, sites
location, users distribution and antennas height.
We simulated two main types of coordination in the real
1
SINR CDF comparison between different CoMP cluster size
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
CDF
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50
SINR
Fig. 3. SINR CDF comparison between different CoMP cluster sizes
CoMP network using WinProp. The first type is held between
sectors within the same BS which is called intra-site
coordination, and the second type is between a set of sectors
which belong to different BSs. This type is called inter-site
coordination. Both of them are simulated for non-overlapped
clustering.
We can simulate up to seven carriers and two horizontal and
vertical polarizations, thus we have 14 unique RF and
polarization air interfaces. Using the same carrier causes
different types of interference, and the practical system model
has more than 14 clusters in both intra-site and inter-site
coordination. The demands here are more than the available
resources because there are only 14 unique RF and the number
of clusters is more than 14. Reuse of frequency spectrum and
reduced cell size have to be implemented. This may lead to an
increase in the interference level in the multi-cell networks.
Applying frequency reuse should occur between geographically
separated clusters to prevent any overlapping between the
spectrum resources as the interference and distance between
clusters are inversely related.
A. Inter-site clusters coordination
The real system model consists of 20 sites with 60 cells. We
simulated this system model using 23 clusters in the inter-site
coordination type. Choosing the 23 clusters in this stage is
primary based on sector locations where some of them are in
the network borders and the others in the middle of the network.
Fig. 4a shows the 23 clusters network coverage, the clusters are
of different sizes due to non-uniform ISD and real network
distribution.
Since there are 23 clusters and 14 unique RF parameters, we
reused 9 RF parameters in different clusters, and only 5 clusters
have unique RF parameters. Fig. 4b demonstrates how the
downlink interference differs from one cluster to another. Less
interference exists in the 5 clusters which have unique RF
parameters while the interference is higher in the remaining 18
clusters because their RF spectrum has been reused twice.
Despite of the benefits of using frequency reuse technique,
UEs still suffer some interference between the sectors in the
networks especially in short ISD networks. UEs in the middle
of the network experience higher interference because they are
affected by many undesired signals from neighboring sectors
Cluster size =1 while the UEs in the network edge receives less undesired
Cluster size =2
Cluster size =3 signals.
Cluster size =4
Cluster size =5
Cluster size =6
B. Intra-site clusters coordination
The coordination in intra-site clusters takes place on the BS
level where all BS cells belong to one cluster. The number of
the clusters in intra-site coordination is equal to the number of
sites, which equal 20 sites in the practical system model. Fig.
5a shows the 20 intra-site clusters in the network where each
color refers to one cluster.
60 70 Frequency reuse is applied in the intra-site coordination case
also, where there are 6 clusters with reused RF parameters. Fig.
5b shows the SINR level distribution in the system with intra-
 Proceedings of the 8th IEEE GCC Conference and Exhibition, Muscat, Oman, 1-4 February, 2015

(a) Coordinated clusters distribution (a) Coordinated clusters distribution

(b) SINR level (b) SINR level

Fig. 4. Inter-site coordination in real network; cluster distribution and SINR Fig.5. Intra-site coordination in real network; cluster distribution and SINR

site coordination. There is no direct comparison between inter- presented in Fig. 3. This figure illustrates the fact that we can
site and intra-site coordination SINR levels since their sites get better SINR enhancement in inter-site CoMP in comparison
have different RF plan. to intra-site CoMP, but this will be at the cost of the needed
Figure 6 shows the SINR CDF for no-CoMP, intra-site backhaul to exchange data between BSs. At CDF equals to 0.4,
CoMP, inter-site CoMP (cluster size is 3) and inter-site (cluster inter-site CoMP SINR exceed intra-site CoMP by 6 dB.
size is 4). This figure quantitatively shows the SINR behavior Increasing the cluster size leads to improvement in the SINR
in the real network system model compared with the ideal case values in inter-site coordination case, but the signal overhead to
exchange CSI increases. The plots in Figure 6 are based on real
1
Real Network SINR CDF Comparison Between Different CoMP status
data so their behaviors is not very smooth.
0.9 V. CONCLUSIONS
0.8
In this paper, we have investigated the ideal and real CoMP
0.7 networks in different types of clustering. It was shown that real
0.6 CoMP can enhance the SINR to noticeable levels as in ideal
CoMP networks. We have quantified the SINR improvement
CDF

0.5
and discussed the effect of cluster size on the achieved SINR
0.4
for practical and ideal networks. Increasing the number of
0.3 coordinated sectors in small clusters size shows more SINR
0.2
No Coordination improvement compared with larger clusters.
Intra-Site CoMP
0.1 Inter-Site CoMP (Cluster size is 3)
We addressed clustering and SINR behavior for inter-site
Inter-Site CoMP (Cluster size is 4) and intra-site clustering in Al-Khobar. We believe a
0
-10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 comprehensive investigation for applying coordination in non-
SINR
coastal cities and comparing the gain with coastal ones deserves
Fig. 6. Practical network SINR CDF comparison between different CoMP further work.
approaches
 Proceedings of the 8th IEEE GCC Conference and Exhibition, Muscat, Oman, 1-4 February, 2015
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