An integrated approach to solving retrial queue complexity

Retrial queues have been proposed in literature as a means of managing lost traffic in wireless cellular networks. However, the retrial queue system has led to a more complex Markovic process in network analysis. This complexity is further worsened by the addition of handover prioritization. In this paper, a solution that can minimize this complexity has been studied. The solution involves an integration of computational and analytical modeling techniques. The work was simulated and tested in Matlab/Simulink with guard channels as a handover prioritization scheme. Further evaluations were carried out on the effect of blocking probability (PB) as a quality of service (QoS) parameter. Numerical results obtained from the integrated approach show that the retrial queue reduces the PB for all requests (new and handover). The result obtained from this paper simplifies the solution to the complexity found in retrial queue systems. Furthermore, it was also deduced that reduced retrial rate with corresponding increase in the retrial queue size improves the network quality without an increase in system complexity.Keywords: Markov, retrial, probability, network, traffi

Modelling and Optimisation of GSM and UMTS Radio Access Networks

The size and complexity of mobile communication networks have increased in the last years making network management a very complicated task. GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN) systems are in a mature state now. Thus, non-optimal performance does not come from typical network start-up problems, but, more likely, from the mismatching between traffic, network or propagation models used for network planning, and their real counterparts. Such differences cause network congestion problems both in signalling and data channels. With the aim of maximising the financial benefits on their mature networks, operators do not solve anymore congestion problems by adding new radio resources, as they usually did. Alternatively, two main strategies can be adopted, a) a better assignment of radio resources through a re-planning approach, and/or b) the automatic configuration (optimisation, in a wide sense) of network parameters. Both techniques aim to adapt the network to the actual traffic and propagation conditions. Moreover, a new heterogenous scenario, where several services and Radio Access Technologies (RATs) coexist in the same area, is now common, causing new unbalanced traffic scenarios and congestion problems. In this thesis, several optimisation and modelling methods are proposed to solve congestion problems in data and signalling channels for single- and multi-RAT scenarios

Insensitive Bounds for the Stationary Distribution of a Single Server Retrial Queue with Server Subject to Active Breakdowns

The paper addresses monotonicity properties of the single server retrial queue with no waiting room and server subject to active breakdowns. The obtained results allow us to place in a prominent position the insensitive bounds for the stationary distribution of the embedded Markov chain related to the model in the study. Numerical illustrations are provided to support the results

Performance Analysis and Modelling of Spectrum Handoff Schemes in Cognitive Radio Networks. Modelling and Analysis of Spectrum Handoff Decision Schemes in Cognitive Radio Networks using the Queuing Theory and Simulation for Licensed and Unlicensed Spectrum Bands.

Recently, wireless access has become an essential part of modern society. Consequently, the demand for new wireless applications and services, as well as the number of wireless users, are gradually increasing. Given that this amount of expansion is eventually controlled by the available radio frequency spectrum, government regulatory agencies have recently adopted a strict approach to the licensing of limited amounts of spectrum to different entities (e.g., public safety, military, service providers, unlicensed devices, and TV). All of them possess exclusive transmissions to their assigned frequency channels. A new study on spectrum efficiency revealed big geographic and temporal variations in spectrum utilisation, ranging from 15-85% in the bands below 3GHz. These variations were less at frequencies above this figure. Recently, the Cognitive Radio (CR) has risen as an encouraging piece of technology to improve spectrum efficiency and to solve the problem of spectrum scarcity. This is because CR allows the secondary (unlicensed) users to occupy unused licensed spectrum bands temporarily, given that the interference of the primary (licensed) users is prohibited or minimised. In this thesis, various spectrum handoff management schemes have been proposed in order to improve the performance evaluation for CR networks. The proposed spectrum handoff schemes use the Opportunistic Spectrum Access (OSA) concept to utilise available spectrum bands. The handoff Secondary Users (SUs) have a higher priority to occupy available spectrum channels in the licensed and unlicensed spectrum bands without interfering with the legacy spectrum owner, i.e. primary users (PUs). However, existing spectrum handoff management schemes in CR networks do not provide high transmission opportunities for handoff secondary users to utilise the available radio spectrum resources. The first part of this thesis addresses the issue of spectrum handoff management in a licensed spectrum band environment. In this case, both reactive and proactive spectrum handoff schemes are proposed. Queuing theory or/and simulation experiments have been used to evaluate the performance of the proposed schemes and compare them with other existing schemes. Handoff delay has mainly been used to investigate the impact of successive handoff operations on the performance of the proposed CR networks. Implemented models have shown an improvement in the adopted performance measures. According to the achieved results, the improvement of the proposed, prioritised handoff schemes in some cases is approximately 75% when compared with existing schemes. On the other hand, the second part of this research proposed a prioritised spectrum handoff scheme in a heterogeneous spectrum environment, which is composed of a pool of licensed and unlicensed spectrum channels. In general, the availability of substantial numbers of the licensed spectrum channels is the key benefit of using this type of radio spectrum channel. Whereas, accessing with equal rights for all types of users is the main advantage of using unlicensed spectrum channels. In this respect, no transmission interruptions occur once a user obtains a channel. In addition, the proposed schemes use only the unlicensed spectrum channels as their backup channels. This enables the user to resume interrupted transmission in the case of the spectrum handoff operation (mainly; due to the appearance of the primary users), and thus facilitates a SUs communication. The proposed principle is investigated using a retrial queuing theory as well as extensive simulation experiments, and is compared with another non-prioritised scheme which do not give any preference to handoff SUs over new SUs. The results indicate that the proposed model has improved on current average handoff delay. This thesis contributes to knowledge by further enhancing the efficient utilisation of available radio spectrum resources and therefore subsequently provides an improvement in the spectrum capacity for wireless cognitive radio networks

Energieeffiziente und rechtzeitige Ereignismeldung mittels drahtloser Sensornetze

This thesis investigates the suitability of state-of-the-art protocols for large-scale and long-term environmental event monitoring using wireless sensor networks based on the application scenario of early forest fire detection. By suitable combination of energy-efficient protocol mechanisms a novel communication protocol, referred to as cross-layer message-merging protocol (XLMMP), is developed. Qualitative and quantitative protocol analyses are carried out to confirm that XLMMP is particularly suitable for this application area. The quantitative analysis is mainly based on finite-source retrial queues with multiple unreliable servers. While this queueing model is widely applicable in various research areas even beyond communication networks, this thesis is the first to determine the distribution of the response time in this model. The model evaluation is mainly carried out using Markovian analysis and the method of phases. The obtained quantitative results show that XLMMP is a feasible basis to design scalable wireless sensor networks that (1) may comprise hundreds of thousands of tiny sensor nodes with reduced node complexity, (2) are suitable to monitor an area of tens of square kilometers, (3) achieve a lifetime of several years. The deduced quantifiable relationships between key network parameters — e.g., node size, node density, size of the monitored area, aspired lifetime, and the maximum end-to-end communication delay — enable application-specific optimization of the protocol