Method and apparatus for configuring multi-level cells or cell clusters and communications systems

An apparatus for configuring multi-level cells or cell clusters, wherein the apparatus configures a communications system into cells or cell clusters of at least three levels, and the apparatus comprises:

• an information exchanging unit configured to exchange with one or more other base stations or cell cluster heads in a same level to obtain first information;
• an information receiving unit configured to receive second information reported by one or more base stations or cell cluster heads in a lower level;
• a cluster determining unit configured to configure one or more cells in the lower level into a cell cluster according to the first information and the second information, and determine a cluster head of the cell cluster;
• and
• an information transmitting unit configured to perform information transmission with the cluster head of the cell cluster, and the one or more cells in the lower level perform information transmission with the cluster head of the cell cluster.

A communications system having cells or cell clusters of at least three levels, the communications system comprising:

• an Nth-level cell or cell cluster;
• a cell base station or cell cluster head for communicating with one or more (N+1)th-level cell or cell cluster heads;
• one or more (N+1)th-level cells or cell clusters, each of the one or more (N+1)th-level cells or cell clusters having a cluster head, and at least one of resource allocation or information transmission being performed on one or more (N+2)th-level cells or cell clusters via the cluster head, wherein the (N+1)th-cell cluster is configured by the Nth-level cell base station or cell cluster head according to first information obtained by exchanging with one or more other Nth-level cell base stations or cell cluster heads and second information reported by one or more cell base stations or cell cluster heads in the lower level;
• one or more (N+2)th-level cells or cell clusters;
• and
• a cell base station or cell cluster head for communicating with at least one of the (N+1)th-level cell base stations or cell cluster heads.