A Coalitional Model Predictive Control Approach for Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

Heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets) are large-scale systems that comprise numerous base stations interacting with a significant number of users of diverse types. Finding a trade-off between energy consumption and quality of service is one of the major challenges in these networks. To deal with this issue, a coalitional model predictive control (MPC) approach is proposed for a HetNet powered by renewable power sources, and compared in simulation with the traditional best-signal level mechanism and the centralized MPC method. Furthermore, other key performance indicators associated with grid consumption such as the number of served users and transmission rates are also evaluated.