Abstract—Rapid increase in mobile data has raised the stakes on developing innovative new technologies and cellular topologies that can meet these demands in an energy efficient manner. One of the most interesting trends that will emerge from this cellular evolution is the femtocell networks. Femtocells are small, inexpensive, low power base stations that are generally consumer deployed, and are expected to significantly improve the coverage and capacity of the indoor users. Femtocell base stations (FBSs) have extensive auto configuration and self-optimization capability to enable simple plug-and-play deployment. The FBSs perform self-optimization function that continually adjusts the transmit power so the femtocell coverage does not leak into an outdoor area while sufficiently covering the indoor femtocell area. In this paper, different power control techniques in femtocell networks have been discussed and compared. The focus is on distributed power control techniques due to the decentralized nature of femtocell networks. The conclusion drawn from this review is that the distributed power control techniques using pilot power control schemes are simple and effective in optimizing the coverage of femtocells as well as reducing power consumption of the FBS. Furthermore a novel algorithm is still needed to perform power control optimization in femtocell networks.

Index Terms—heterogeneous networks, femtocell, power control

Cite: Sawsan A. Saad, Mahamod Ismail, and Rosdiadee Nordin, "A Survey on Power Control Techniques in Femtocell Networks," Journal of Communications, vol. 8, no. 12, pp. 845-854, 2013. doi: 10.12720/jcm.8.12.845-854