Link Performance Analysis of Cooperative Transmission Techniques for LTE-A Uplink

Long-Term Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) will rely on the concept of 'small cell', i.e. low-power and low-cost radio base station, whose target is to provide broadband and energy-efficient coverage in residential sites and hot spot outdoor environment. Small cells will be characterized by some peculiar features that will make easier the coordination among base stations in order to improve link capacity. In this paper, we will assess the link level performance of a cooperative multi-point transmission scheme for LTE-A small-cell uplink. The mobile terminal transmits the uplink signal to a virtual networked MIMO consisting of different Evolved Node Bs (eNBs) jointly processing the signal. Coorperation is applied at eNB level in order to improve system diversity without increasing terminal complexity. Bit-Error-Rate (BER) performance of the simulated networked MIMO system will be first appreciated, assuming error-free and delay-free backhauling. In the perspective of considering realistic sim...