Aerial Booster-Cell Enabled Inter-Cell Interference Coordination for 5G NR Networks

2026-04-08

AI Summary

This work addresses the severe and spatially uneven downlink interference experienced by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) users in 5G New Radio (NR) networks, primarily caused by base station antenna sidelobes due to mechanical downtilt. To mitigate this issue, the paper proposes a novel interference coordination framework that jointly optimizes the antenna domain—through base station tilt adjustment—and the time domain—via 5G NR-compliant scheduling—within an aerial-enhanced cellular architecture. This approach represents the first effort to achieve coordinated optimization across both domains in mixed air-ground scenarios. The resulting non-convex multi-cell problem is solved using a hybrid particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm. The proposed scheme significantly improves the worst-case signal-to-interference ratio and downlink reliability for UAV users while maintaining the performance of terrestrial users.

Abstract

Cellular-connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating in 5G New Radio (NR) macro networks experience severe and spatially non-uniform downlink interference. This is primarily caused by the interference from the sidelobes of downtilted base station (BS) antennas serving terrestrial users, which limits the ability of the network to provide uniform and high-quality coverage to aerial users. Supporting aerial users requires boosting the coverage of certain cells or sectors, which can further exacerbate inter-cell interference in dense macro deployments. This motivates the need for inter-cell interference coordination (ICIC) in multi-cell 5G NR networks serving both aerial and terrestrial users. In this work, we propose an ICIC framework that jointly optimizes antenna-domain coordination through BS uptilt angle optimization and time-domain interference coordination (TDIC) through NR-compliant scheduling. The framework is formulated as a multi-cell NR macro deployment problem that maximizes the minimum UAV signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) over a spatial grid of UAV locations while maintaining acceptable performance for ground user equipment (GUEs). The resulting optimization problem is non-convex and is solved using bio-inspired optimization techniques, including particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA). Simulation results demonstrate that coordinated uptilt optimization with the booster-cell architecture significantly improves worst-case UAV SIR and downlink reliability in multi-cell 5G NR networks. booster-cell architecture significantly improves worst-case UAV SIR and downlink reliability in multi-cell 5G NR networks.

Problem

• UAV
• inter-cell interference
• 5G NR
• downlink interference
• coverage

Innovation

• Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (ICIC)
• Aerial Booster-Cell
• UAV coverage
• Antenna uptilt optimization
• Time-Domain Interference Coordination (TDIC)