In-band full-duplex (IBFD) backhauling is a potential technique for wireless backhauling of small cells that allows the use of same spectrum for the backhaul and access links of the small cell base stations (SBSs) concurrently, however, at the expense of backhaul interference and self-interference (SI). This paper investigates the problem of optimal access/backhaul spectrum allocation considering IBFD backhauling, out-of-band full-duplex (OBFD) backhauling (in which the access and backhaul transmissions take place on different spectrum), and the SBSs with the provisioning for hybrid IBFD/OBFD backhauling. We first formulate a problem to maximize the minimum achievable rate (i.e., minimum of the rates in the backhaul link and the access link) at the SBSs in a hybrid IBFD/OBFD setting. The solution of the centralized spectrum allocation problem, which serves as a benchmark for any sub-optimal solution, is provided by transforming the original problem into an epigraph form. As a special case of the formulated problem, we derive closed-form optimal solutions for the access/backhaul spectrum allocation of OBFD backhauling as well as IBFD backhauling. We then propose and comparatively analyze the performance of two distributed backhaul spectrum allocation schemes, namely, maximum received signal power (max-RSP) and minimum received signal power (min-RSP) schemes. For these schemes, we theoretically derive the number of allocated backhaul channels, minimum rate coverage probability, and average achievable rate of each SBS given its distance from the centralized wireless backhaul hub (WBH) for both IBFD and OBFD backhauling. Numerical results reveal that the optimal spectrum allocation rules can significantly vary for IBFD and OBFD backhauling. Optimal OBFD backhauling favors more backhaul spectrum for SBSs located far-away from the WBH. With IBFD backhauling, spectrum allocation for SBSs strongly depends on SI. With the reduction in SI, the optimal backhaul spectrum increases/decreases for nearby/farther SBSs. Simulation results comparing the optimal solution with the distributed spectrum allocation solutions based on max-RSP and min-RSP schemes are also presented.

The diverse transmit powers of the base-stations (BSs) in a multi-tier cellular network lead to uneven distribution of the traffic loads among different BSs and thus cause underutilization of the available resources at low power BSs. In this context, this paper proposes a channel access-aware (CAA) user association scheme that can simultaneously enhance the system spectral efficiency and balance the traffic loads among different BSs. The CAA scheme is a network-assisted user association scheme that requires the traffic load informations from different BSs in addition to the channel quality indicators. Also, in this paper, we develop a tractable mathematical framework to characterize the spectral efficiency of downlink transmission to a user who associates to a BS using CAA scheme. Numerical results demonstrate the performance gains of CAA scheme over conventional received signal power-based association and biased-received signal power-based association. The derived expressions provide approximate solutions of reasonable accuracy when compared to the results obtained by Monte-Carlo simulations. Moreover, the impact of state-of-the-art almost blank sub-frames (ABS)-based interference coordination scheme on the proposed CAA scheme is also investigated using Monte-Carlo simulations.

Base station (BS) sleeping has emerged as a viable solution to enhance the overall network energy efficiency by inactivating the underutilized BSs. However, it affects the performance of users in sleeping cells depending on their BS association criteria, their channel conditions toward the active BSs, and scheduling criteria and traffic loads at the active BSs. This paper characterizes the performance of cellular systems with BS sleeping by developing a systematic framework to derive the spectral efficiency and outage probability of downlink transmission to the sleeping cell users taking into account the aforementioned factors. In this context, a user association scheme is also developed in which sleeping cell users associate to a BS with maximum mean channel access probability (MMAP). The MMAP-based user association scheme adapts according to traffic load and scheduling criteria at the active BSs. We consider greedy and round-robin schemes at active BSs for scheduling users in a channel. We also derive the analytical results for the conventional maximum received signal power (MRSP)-based user association scheme. Finally, we derive the statistics of the received signal and interference power to evaluate the downlink spectral efficiency of a given sleeping cell user. Numerical results provide a comparison between two user association schemes as a function of system parameters and demonstrate the efficacy of the MMAP-based association scheme in non-uniform traffic load scenarios.