Analysis of Synchronization Impairments for Cooperative Base Stations Using OFDM

Base station cooperation is envisioned as a key technology for future cellular networks, as it has the potential to eliminate intercell interference and to enhance spectral efficiency. To date, there is still lack of understanding of how imperfect carrier and sampling frequency synchronization between transmitters and receivers limit the potential gains and what the actual system requirements are. In this paper, OFDM signal model is established for multiuser multicellular networks, describing the joint effect of multiple carrier and sampling frequency offsets. It is shown that the impact of sampling offsets is much smaller than the impact of carrier frequency offsets. The model is extended to the downlink of base-coordinated networks and closed-form expressions are derived for the mean power of users’ self-signal, interuser, and intercarrier interference, whereas it is shown that interuser interference is the main source of degradation. The SIR is inverse to the base stations’ carrier frequency variance and to the square of time since the last precoder update, whereas it grows with the number of base stations and drops with the number of users. Through user selection, the derived SIR upper bound can be approached. Finally, system design recommendations for meeting synchronization requirements are provided.