Machine Learning and Deep Learning-Based Atmospheric Duct Interference Detection and Mitigation in TD-LTE Networks

Rasendram Muralitharan, Upul Jayasinghe, Roshan G. Ragel, Gyu Myoung Lee

The variations in the atmospheric refractivity in the lower atmosphere create a natural phenomenon known as atmospheric ducts. The atmospheric ducts allow radio signals to travel long distances. This can adversely affect telecommunication systems, as cells with similar frequencies can interfere with each other due to frequency reuse, which is intended to optimize resource allocation. Thus, the downlink signals of one base station will travel a long distance via the atmospheric duct and interfere with the uplink signals of another base station. This scenario is known as atmospheric duct interference (ADI). ADI could be mitigated using digital signal processing, machine learning, and hybrid approaches. To address this challenge, we explore machine learning and deep learning techniques for ADI prediction and mitigation in Time-Division Long-Term Evolution (TD-LTE) networks. Our results show that the Random Forest algorithm achieves the highest prediction accuracy, while a convolutional neural network demonstrates the best mitigation performance with accuracy. Additionally, we propose optimizing special subframe configurations in TD-LTE networks using machine learning-based methods to effectively reduce ADI.