A Dynamic Clustering Approach in Wireless Networks With Multi-Cell Cooperative Processing

Multi-cell Cooperative Processing (MCP) has recently attracted much attention because of its potential for Co-Channel Interference (CCI) mitigation and spectral efficiency increase. MCP inevitably creates inter-base signaling overhead. Therefore, in practice only a limited number of Base Stations (BSs) can cooperate in order for the signaling overhead to be affordable. The intrinsic problem of which BSs should cooperate in a realistic scenario has been only partially investigated. In this contribution Zero-Forcing (ZF) beamforming has been considered for the sum-rate maximisation of the uplink. A novel dynamic greedy algorithm for the formation of the clusters of cooperating BSs is presented in a realistic cellular network incorporating MCP. The objective of the clustering algorithm is sum-rate maximisation.