Distributed slot allocation with centralized power control and beamforming for multicell packet access networks with smart antennas

This paper addresses dynamic resource allocation (DRA) with power control for the downlink of a Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA) broadband multicellular wireless packet network with adaptive antennas. The main issue for distributed DRA is how to manage the intercell interference, which is very difficult to handle in an uncoordinated environment, due to packet access and downlink beamforming. The issue of efficiently performing DRA and power control in such environment is still open. In this paper we propose to do the slot allocation distributedly with a rough estimate of the intercell interference, and the power control and beamforming in a centralized manner, after the allocation. This keep the computational effort low with respect to a completely centralized allocation algorithm. We show that the gap between a distributed algorithm with uncoordinated power control and a totally centralized allocation algorithm can be significantly reduced.