Avoiding transmitter collision sessions in femtocells arrays

A method of avoiding collisions between transmit signals of neighboring femtocell base stations, wherein each femtocell base station is configured to generate a transmission signal exhibiting periodic frames, wherein each frame exhibits frame boundaries and an active transmit signal within the frame boundaries, and wherein the active transmit signal includes a temporal transmit position being a start point of the transmit signal, the method comprising:

• detecting neighboring base stations;
• detecting frame boundaries of the transmit signals of each detected neighboring base station;
• selecting the temporal transmit position such that a likelihood of collisions between transmit signals is minimized in view of the detected frame boundaries when neighboring base stations are detected;
• selecting the temporal transmit position to be a current transmit position added to a predefined number of chips when no neighboring base stations are detected for a predefined period of time;
• setting a temporal transmit position to the selected temporal transmit position;
• and
• gradually adjusting the selected temporal transmit position over time such the likelihood of collisions between transmit signals remains minimized.

A cellular communication network, comprising a plurality of macrocell base stations and femtocell base stations, comprising:

• a femtocell base station control unit, incorporated within at least one of the plurality of femtocell base stations, configured to generate a transmission signal exhibiting periodic frames, wherein each frame exhibits frame boundaries and an active transmit signal within the frame boundaries, and wherein the active transmit signal includes a temporal transmit position being a start point of the transmit signal;
• and
• a collisions avoidance module configured to:
• detect neighboring base stations;
• detect frame boundaries of a signal transmitted by each detected neighboring base station;
• select the temporal transmit position such that a likelihood of collisions between transmit signals is minimized when neighboring base stations are detected;
• select the temporal transmit position to be a current transmit position added to a predefined number of chips when no neighboring base stations are detected for a predefined period of time;
• set a transmit position to the selected temporal transmit position;
• and
• gradually adjust the selected temporal transmit position over time such that the likelihood of collisions between transmit signals remains minimized.