A Distributed Clustering Algorithm for Coordinated Multipoint in LTE Networks

Coordination and cooperation among transmitters are fundamental paradigms to improve the performance of next-generation mobile networks. By grouping multiple transmitters into clusters, interference can be managed to improve the performance at the end user's side. In this letter, we present a novel distributed clustering algorithm that adapts the cluster configuration according to the users distribution and the average cluster size. We compare the performance obtained with other clustering solutions in an LTE scenario using the open-source network simulator ns3. Our proposed algorithm is shown to significantly outperform the other approaches, particularly for the users with low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), with a 26% improvement of throughput for the worst 10% of the low-SNR users compared with greedy clustering.