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A New Distributed Approach for Achieving Clock Synchronization in Heterogeneous Networks
2011 IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (2011)
  • Hani Mehrpouyan
  • Steven D. Blostein, Queen's University
  • Tommy Svensson
Abstract
Heterogeneous networks have the potential to improve coverage, throughput, and energy efficiency of wireless networks through the use of specialized cellular structures, in particular femtocells and macrocells. However, to reduce interference between different cells, ensure smooth hand-offs from cell to cell, and achieve seamless operation the overall network needs to be synchronized. In this paper a new distributed clock synchronization scheme for heterogeneous networks is proposed that employs the clock drift information available at user-equipments (UEs) to achieve synchronization between non-interacting femtocells and macrocells. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can significantly reduce the clock drift between macrocells and femtocells and result in timing synchronization throughout the network without introducing significant overhead.
Keywords
  • heterogeneous networks,
  • two-tier,
  • synchronization,
  • macrocell,
  • femtocell,
  • clock drift,
  • timing offset
Publication Date
2011
Publisher Statement
© 2011 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. doi: 10.1109/GLOCOM.2011.6133859
Citation Information
Hani Mehrpouyan, Steven D. Blostein and Tommy Svensson. "A New Distributed Approach for Achieving Clock Synchronization in Heterogeneous Networks" 2011 IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (2011)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/hani_mehrpouyan/38/