Small Cell Deployments: Recent Advances and Research Challenges

Abstract: This paper summarizes the outcomes of the 5th International Workshop on Femtocells held at King's College London, UK, on the 13th and 14th of February, 2012.The workshop hosted cutting-edge presentations about the latest advances and research challenges in small cell roll-outs and heterogeneous cellular networks. This paper provides some cutting edge information on the developments of Self-Organizing Networks (SON) for small cell deployments, as well as related standardization supports on issues such as carrier aggregation (CA), Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) techniques, and enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (eICIC), etc. Furthermore, some recent efforts on issues such as energy-saving as well as Machine Learning (ML) techniques on resource allocation and multi-cell cooperation are described. Finally, current developments on simulation tools and small cell deployment scenarios are presented. These topics collectively represent the current trends in small cell deployments.