3rd International Conference on Advanced Technologies
for Signal and Image Processing - ATSIP'2017
May 22-24, 2017, Fez, Morroco.
Small Cell Switch Off Using Genetic Algorithm
Yasmina EL MORABIT, Fatiha MRABTI, EL Houssein ABARKAN
Laboratory of Signals, System and Components
Faculty of sciences and technology
University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Fez, Morocco
elmorabityasmina@gmail.com, f_mrabti@yahoo.fr, habarkan@yahoo.fr
Abstract—The densification of small cells in heterogeneous
cellular networks is one of the main approaches of 5G technology
that aim to fulfill the growth of traffic demand. However, this
densification leads to increase total energy consumption of the
network. One way to save energy is to switch off some
underutilized cells during low traffic periods. In order to address
this problem, we propose dynamic switch off cell scheme based
on the genetic algorithm to optimize and improve the energy
efficiency by considering diverse parameters for each small cell
in the decision process such as: the load traffic of the cell, load
traffic of neighboring cells and the coverage provided by the
multiple interfering small cells. The simulation result showed
that our approach allows to save up to 10.87% more energy of
total network energy consumption.
Keywords—Heterogeneous cellular networks, Small cell,
Genetic Algorithm, Energy Efficiency.
I. INTRODUCTION
The exponential growth in wireless data load traffic has led
network operators to consider dense deployment of different
types of small cells such as micro, pico and femto cells, with
macro cells to satisfy the traffic demand. This architecture
called a multi-tier heterogeneous network which is the
dominant scenario in the 5G era [1].
The densification of small cells in heterogeneous cellular
networks (HetNet) increases network energy consumption.
Between 50% to 80% of the energy consumption in cellular
networks takes place in the base stations [2], this consumption
is largely independent of traffic load. During the period of low
user activity, the traffic demand can be served by a fewer
number of cells, without compromising the quality of service
supplied to the users. This introduces the idea of switching off
some underutilized small cells to save energy. The
identification of the set of the small base stations (SBS) to be
switched off is a crucial problem and is depended by different
parameters such as the load traffic of the cells and their
neighboring, the coverage provided by the multiple interfering
small cells, etc.
Many algorithms and techniques have been proposed in
literature to solve this problem [3- 6]. For example in [7], the
authors have proposed a pricing based algorithm to switch off
a cell in green cellular network and optimizes the transmission
powers in a way that minimizes the energy expenditure. The
authors in [8] have proposed a dynamic on/off scheduling
algorithm in small cell networks based on the Stackelberg
978-1-5386-0551-6/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
game to optimize the packet throughput with a tradeoff of
energy consumption. One study uses a combination of Grey
Relational Analysis and Analytic Hierarchy Process tools to
trigger the switch off actions [9]. On/off switch operation on
small cell BSs based on the Reinforcement learning policy
was proposed in [10].
Selecting the set of cells to switch off can be a difficult
problem to solve analytically due to the difficulty of taking in
consideration many aspects of the problem, because is
influenced by the behaviour of diverse factors and parameters.
This diversity in parameters with contradictory objectives
leads us to complex scenarios from the domain of multi-
objective optimization problems. The most popular approach
to solve this kind of problems is the genetic algorithm (GA).
The GA optimizes the multiple parameters of a problem in
parallel and furnishes the optimal solution.
The GA is a class of evolutionary algorithms inspired from
the idea of natural selection and genetics by Darwin. In the
GA, the population is created by randomly selecting a group
of solutions represented by the so-called chromosomes which
are evolving and evaluating over a period of time through the
GA operations such as selection, crossover and mutation. A
good solution will be found by combining different possible
solutions [11].
In this paper, we interest to minimize the total energy
consumption on the network by switching off some
underutilized small cells during low traffic load based on the
GA, considering as genes the load traffic of the cell, load
traffic of neighboring cells and the coverage provided by the
multiple interfering small cells. In small cell networks,
performing dynamic approaches for switching BSs off may
require the knowledge of the entire network. Therefore, the
supervision of the network is guaranteed by an intelligent
equipment (cognitive equipment CE) to gather information
from SBS and to decide which SBS to switch off based on the
traffic load and then to re-associate the users equipment (UE)
of a SBS to its neighbors.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
presents a brief overview of genetic algorithms (GA). Section
III describes the system model. Simulation results are shown
in Section IV and concluding remarks are presented in Section
V.
1
 II. GENETIC ALGORITHM
The genetic algorithm (GA) is a class of evolutionary
algorithms inspired from the idea of natural selection and
genetics. It combines a strategy of "survival of the fittest" with
a structured random exchange of information. The basic steps
of GA are as follows [11].
1) Generate initial population of chromosomes.
2) Calculate the fitness value of each chromosome to class
them.
3) Select the best chromosomes in terms of their fitness as
parent chromosomes.
4) Carry out the crossover operation on selected
chromosomes to generate child chromosomes.
5) Carry out the mutation function on selected
chromosomes.
6) Return to step 2 if stopping criteria is not achieved
otherwise terminate the GA and select the best
chromosome with highest fitness value.
The crossover is an operation to share information between
chromosomes and to create new individuals from the
incoming generation.
The new created individual will be mutated at a definite
point in the chromosome.
III. PROBLEM FORMULATION
We consider a centralized system with M LTE Pico cells
and N user equipments (UEs) distributed randomly. Figure 1
presents an example of LTE HetNet.
The Pico base station (PBS) switch off procedure is
launched iteratively based on the genetic algorithm (GA) to
find an optimal matching between the network topology and
the traffic load conditions. Each cell is considered as a
chromosome with 3 encoding parameters (genes): cell load
traffic, load traffic of the neighbors and the coverage rate of
each cell. The algorithm calculates the fitness function of each
cell and selects the PBS with low traffic load as a candidate
for switch off. Then the mechanism tries to re-associate the
UEs of a PBS to its neighbors.
Fig. 1. Example of HetNet with Macro BS and Small BS
A. Genetic algorithm
1) Chromosome Structure
In this study we propose the chromosome structure
consists of 3 genes with different sizes and characteristics:
coverage rate (CR) encoded on 6 bits, cell load traffic (CLT)
encoded on 7 bits and neighbors load traffic (NLT) is encoded
on 7 bits. Each chromosome represents a Pico cell.
2) Fitness function
The fitness function of each gene is giving as:
a. Coverage rate (CR)
The CRi represents the rate of UEs connected to PBSi. It is
estimated by each PBS individually and the result is sent to the
cognitive equipment.
The fitness function of the CRi is given as [9]:
h∗1
fCR i = (1)
Ni
Where h ϵ {0, 1}Ni a binary vector. If h(Ni)=1 the nith
connected user equipment has a handover candidate and 0
otherwise.
b. Cell load traffic (CLT)
The CLTi rate the traffic intensity in PBSi, the fitness
function of this parameter is [9]:
Nd,i
fCLT i = (2)
Nt,i
Where Nd,i is total data rate required to satisfy each
connected UEs and is Nt,i total bandwidth assigned to PBSi.
c. Neighboring load traffic (NLT)
The NLTi represents the average load traffic of
surrounding PBSs of PBSi. The NLTi is computed by
cognitive equipment for each PBSi when it receives CLTi from
all PBSs.
K
Nd,k
fNLT i = (3)
Nt,k
k=1
Where K is number of surrounding PBSs of PBSi.
The cumulative sum of individual fitness value fi of all the
genes represents the overall fitness function value of
chromosome F. This value is calculated by:
F = ∑3i=1 wi fi (4)
Where, w= [wCR wCLT wNLT] is a weight vector, wi gives the
importance level or the weight placed upon each objective i
with ∑3i=1 wi = 1. In this paper, we use the given weights,
wCLT=0.5 and remaining 0.5 is equally divided among two
other objective functions.
2
 The values of each function are normalized between 0 and
1. In this study, the best values to switch off a PBS are those
with fCR i converges to 1 and both the fitness
functions fCLT i and fNLT i converge to 0. So, the PBSi with the
minimum fitness value is selected as a candidate cell for
switch off.
The population is then evolved and evaluated across
successive generations based on the GA operators such as
selection, crossover and mutation. We apply the roulette wheel
selection [11] in the selection method. Then an elitist strategy
is applied to conserve the highest fitness individuals as best
solution to the next generation. We consider two point
crossover with probability of crossover Pc and random flip
mutation with probability of mutation Pm.
B. Power model
In this work we utilize the linear power model where the
overall power consumption of each PBS changes linearly as
proposed in [12]. Is given by:
Pi = NT P0 + ∆p ∗ Pt,i , 0 < Pt,i < Pmax (5)
value of each gene to achieve the required specification as
shown in figure 3.
In order to analyze the performance of the procedure of
switching off the Pico cells with low traffic load based on the
fitness function that we use for the genetic algorithm to
decrease the energy consumption by the network, we have
compare the total network energy consumption in the case of
all Pico cells are ON with the switch OFF scheme. This allows
us to observe the improvement gained by using the GA to
search through successive generations to find the best solution.
The simulation result is performed in Matlab software and
showed in the figure 4.
Based on the result, our approach allows to minimize up to
10.87% more energy of total network energy consumption.
So, the pool of parameters that we have included in the
decision process allows to capture efficiently the traffic
fluctuations and as consequence to optimize the selection of
the small cell candidate to switch off.
We observe from the results of figure 5 that better number
of user equipments (UEs) lower total energy saved, this is
because the interference, it is more difficult to hand off UEs
from one cell to a neighboring cell due to the high interference
level.

Where Pt,i is represented by: TABLE I

SIMULATION PARAMETERS
N d ,i
Pt,i = ∗ Pmax (6)
N t ,i Parameter Value
System bandwidth 10 MHz
The power consumption model aggregates two parts. The Number of transceiver chains 2
first introduce the static power consumption, which is Static power consumption 6.8 W
consumed by the regular operation of PBS, and the second is Slope of the load 4
the dynamic power consumption depends on the cell traffic
Maximum pico power 24 dBm
load.
Number of pico cells 10
NT represents number of transceiver chains, Pmax is the
Number of user equipments 20
maximum radio frequency transmits power of the base station
Data rate required for each user equipment 500 kbps
at maximum load, P0 denotes the power consumption at zero
Crossover probability 0.8
RF output power, Δp is the slope of the load and Pt is the root
mean square transmit power. Mutation probability 0.1
The Pt,i for a PBS i have a total bandwidth Nt,i , using total Iterations 150
data rate Nd,i.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
0.5

The scenario is consists of 10 Pico cells and 20 user 0.45

equipments (UE) distributed randomly over the entire area,
0.4
with each UE requiring a constant bit rate of 500 kbps. The
genetic algorithm (GA) was set up with an initial population 0.35
Total fitness value

of 10 chromosomes. The crossover rate is of 0.8 and a 0.3

mutation probability of 0.1. 0.25

The set of parameters used in the simulation is taken from
0.2
[9] and is showed in table I.
0.15

The genes were used in the decision algorithm are 0.1

coverage rate (CR), cell load traffic (CLT) and neighbors load 0.05
traffic (NLT). The results show that the fitness value that
0
converges to zero presents the optimal solution. So from 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Generations
figure 2 our converging point is 0.05. Then, GA found the best
Fig. 2. Total Fitness Value

3
 V. CONCLUSION
0.7 In heterogeneous networks, we proposed an energy
efficient small base station scheme based on switch off
0.6 method using genetic algorithm. During low traffic load, we
hand off some underutilized Pico base stations so as to reduce
Best fitness values of each gene

0.5
CR the overall energy consumption. We proposed a genetic
0.4
CLT algorithm based iterative algorithm, in order to include diverse
NLT
parameters and factors with contradictory objectives in the
0.3 switch off decision process, and as consequence to optimize
the set of switch off cells.
0.2 Considering the simplest scenario that we have presented,
we have shown that the small cell switch off problem can be
0.1 formulated as a binary linear integer programming problem.
The simulation results show that the proposed scheme can
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 furnish energy efficiency gain in low traffic load condition.
Generations
Thus in more complex system models when more parameters
Fig. 3. Best values of each gene like coordinated multipoint transmission-reception or inter-cell
interference coordination are considered, it is necessary to
develop heuristics schemes which are computationally
efficient.
140

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