  In this paper, we propose an iterative interference alignment (IA) algorithm
for MIMO cellular networks with partial connectivity, which is induced by
heterogeneous path losses and spatial correlation. Such systems impose several
key technical challenges in the IA algorithm design, namely the overlapping
between the direct and interfering links due to the MIMO cellular topology as
well as how to exploit the partial connectivity. We shall address these
challenges and propose a three stage IA algorithm. As illustration, we analyze
the achievable degree of freedom (DoF) of the proposed algorithm for a
symmetric partially connected MIMO cellular network. We show that there is
significant DoF gain compared with conventional IA algorithms due to partial
connectivity. The derived DoF bound is also backward compatible with that
achieved on fully connected K-pair MIMO interference channels.
