A New Distributive Approach for Achieving Timing Synchronization in Heterogenous Networks, (in peer review)

Paper in proceedings, 2010

Heterogeneous networks have the potential to improve coverage, throughput, and energy efficiency of wireless networks through the use of specialized cellular structures, i.e., 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 distributive timing synchronization scheme for heterogenous networks is proposed that employs the timing information available at user equipments (UEs) to achieve synchronization between noninteracting femtocells and macrocells. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can significantly reduce the clock bias between macrocells and femtocells without introducing any significant overhead. When the femtocells are densely deployed the combination of the proposed scheme and gossip algorithms can result in synchronization throughout the network.