Energy efficiency scheme for relay node placement in heterogeneous networks

Relay node (RN) placement expands the network coverage and capacity and significantly reduces the energy consumption of heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Energy efficiency is the system design parameter in HetNets as it determines network operators' energy consumption and economic value. Relay is one of the energy-saving methods, where it can reduce the transmit power by breaking a long transmission distance into several short transmissions. However, placing an RN without a proper transmission distance may lead to a waste of energy. Thus, investigating an optimum RN placement in HetNets is crucial to ensure energy efficiency and maintain network performance. This paper presents an energy efficiency scheme for the RN based on four commonly used network topologies of indoor HetNets. The minimum energy consumption algorithm is proposed based on a comparison of distance and links of the RN. The results show that the circular network topology is an optimal network model with an efficiency factor increase of 6% that can be used to design the energy efficiency indoor HetNet.