Interference Management in In-Band D2D Underlaid Cellular Networks

Recently, it has been standardized by the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) that device-to-device (D2D) communications should use uplink resources when coexisting with conventional cellular communications. With uplink resource sharing, both cellular and D2D links cause significant co-channel interference. In this paper, we address the critical issue of interference management in the network considering a practical path loss model incorporating both line-of-sight (LoS) and non-LoS (NLoS) transmissions. To reduce the severe interference caused by active D2D links, we consider a mode selection scheme based on the maximum received signal strength (MRSS) for each user equipment (UE) to control the D2D-to-cellular interference. Furthermore, we analyze the performance in terms of the coverage probability and the area spectral efficiency (ASE) for both the cellular network and the D2D one. Analytical results are obtained and the accuracy of the proposed analytical framework is validated through Monte Carlo simulations. Through our theoretical and numerical analyses, we quantify the performance gains brought by D2D communications in cellular networks and we find an optimum mode selection threshold β to maximize the total ASE in the network. This insight is expected to provide a design guideline for D2D mode selections.