Adaptive Energy Threshold for Improved Co-existence Between Licensed Assisted Access and Wi-Fi

Coexistence with wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) is a key aspect for licensed assisted access (LAA) to succeed. The main coexistence mechanism between both technologies is listen before talk (LBT), whereby radio frequency energy is sensed over a short period of time and compared to an energy detection (ED) threshold. If the sensed energy is below the ED threshold, a node is then allowed to transmit. Otherwise, it backs off. Given the default Wi-Fi and LAA ED thresholds, and the lack of virtual carrier sensing at the LAA side, coexistence problems may raise at below such ED thresholds. In order to address this issue, we propose a practical and easy implementable adaptive ED threshold algorithm, which can dynamically tune the ED threshold at the Wi-Fi and LAA nodes. Simulations results in an enterprise scenario show that the Wi-Fi performance can be significantly enhanced, while moderately impacting LAA performance.