Analysis of macro-diversity in LTE-advanced

Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) transmission/reception is being studied in Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) for future evolution of the 3^rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) LTE. Support of soft handover is essential for improving the performance of cell edge users. CoMP provides a natural framework for enabling soft handover in the LTE system. This paper evaluates the soft handover gain in LTE-A downlink. Mathematical analysis of signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) gain and the handover margins for soft handover and hard handover are derived. CoMP system model is developed and an inter-cell and intra-cell interference model is derived, taking into account the pathloss, shadowing, cell loading, and traffic activity. Reference signal received power (RSRP) is used to define the triggers and the measurements for soft handover. Our results indicate that parameter choices such as handover margin and the CoMP set size impact CoMP performance gain.