Interference alignment for spectral coexistence of heterogeneous networks

The coexistence of heterogeneous networks within the same spectrum for enhancing the spectrum efficiency has attracted large interest lately in the research community. Furthermore, the research interest towards the deployment of small cells and multibeam satellites is increasing due to high capacity, easier deployment and higher energy efficiency. However, due to the scarcity of available spectrum and the requirement of additional spectrum for these systems, small cells need to coexist with macrocells and multibeam satellites need to coexist with monobeam satellites within the same spectrum. In this context, this contribution investigates an underlay spectral coexistence mechanism which exploits an interference alignment (IA) technique in order to mitigate the interference of cognitive transmitters towards the primary receivers in a normal uplink mode. More specifically, three types of IA techniques, namely static, uncoordinated and coordinated are investigated. The performance of the IA technique is evaluated and compared with primary only, resource division and no-mitigation techniques in terms of sum-rate capacity, primary to secondary rate ratio and primary rate protection ratio. It is shown that the coordinated IA technique perfectly protects the primary rate in both terrestrial and satellite coexistence scenarios.