Self organising cloud cells: a resource efficient network densification strategy

Network densification is envisioned as the key enabler for 2020 vision that requires cellular systems to grow in capacity by hundreds of times to cope with unprecedented traffic growth trends being witnessed since advent of broadband on the move. However, increased energy consumption and complex mobility management associated with network densifications remain as the two main challenges to be addressed before further network densification can be exploited on a wide scale. In the wake of these challenges, this paper proposes and evaluates a novel dense network deployment strategy for increasing the capacity of future cellular systems without sacrificing energy efficiency and compromising mobility performance. Our deployment architecture consists of smart small cells, called cloud nodes, which provide data coverage to individual users on a demand bases while taking into account the spatial and temporal dynamics of user mobility and traffic. The decision to activate the cloud nodes, such that certain performance objectives at system level are targeted, is carried out by the overlaying macrocell based on a fuzzy-logic framework. We also compare the proposed architecture with conventional macrocell only deployment and pure microcell-based dense deployment in terms of blocking probability, handover probability and energy efficiency and discuss and quantify the trade-offs therein

Life is short. The impact of power states on base station lifetime

We study the impact of power state transitions on the lifetime of base stations (BSs) in mobile networks. In particular, we propose a model to estimate the lifetime decrease/increase as a consequence of the application of power state changes. The model takes into account both hardware (HW) parameters, which depend on the materials used to build the device, and power state parameters, that instead depend on how and when power state transitions take place. More in depth, we consider the impact of different power states when a BS is active, and one sleep mode state when a BS is powered off. When a BS reduces the power consumption, its lifetime tends to increase. However, when a BS changes the power state, its lifetime tends to be decreased. Thus, there is a tradeoff between these two effects. Our results, obtained over universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) and long term evolution (LTE) case studies, indicate the need of a careful management of the power state transitions in order to not deteriorate the BS lifetime, and consequently to not increase the associated reparation/replacement costs

Radio Link Enabler for Context-aware D2D Communication in Reuse Mode

Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is considered as one of the key technologies for the fifth generation wireless communication system (5G) due to certain benefits provided, e.g. traffic offload and low end-to-end latency. A D2D link can reuse resource of a cellular user for its own transmission, while mutual interference in between these two links is introduced. In this paper, we propose a smart radio resource management (RRM) algorithm which enables D2D communication to reuse cellular resource, by taking into account of context information. Besides, signaling schemes with high efficiency are also given in this work to enable the proposed RRM algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the performance improvement of the proposed scheme in terms of the overall cell capacity

Green Networking in Cellular HetNets: A Unified Radio Resource Management Framework with Base Station ON/OFF Switching

In this paper, the problem of energy efficiency in cellular heterogeneous networks (HetNets) is investigated using radio resource and power management combined with the base station (BS) ON/OFF switching. The objective is to minimize the total power consumption of the network while satisfying the quality of service (QoS) requirements of each connected user. We consider the case of co-existing macrocell BS, small cell BSs, and private femtocell access points (FAPs). Three different network scenarios are investigated, depending on the status of the FAPs, i.e., HetNets without FAPs, HetNets with closed FAPs, and HetNets with semi-closed FAPs. A unified framework is proposed to simultaneously allocate spectrum resources to users in an energy efficient manner and switch off redundant small cell BSs. The high complexity dual decomposition technique is employed to achieve optimal solutions for the problem. A low complexity iterative algorithm is also proposed and its performances are compared to those of the optimal technique. The particularly interesting case of semi-closed FAPs, in which the FAPs accept to serve external users, achieves the highest energy efficiency due to increased degrees of freedom. In this paper, a cooperation scheme between FAPs and mobile operator is also investigated. The incentives for FAPs, e.g., renewable energy sharing and roaming prices, enabling cooperation are discussed to be considered as a useful guideline for inter-operator agreements.Comment: 15 pages, 9 Figures, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology 201

Energy Efficient Small Cell Planning For High Capacity Wireless Networks

This thesis presents a new strategy to densify Small Cells (i.e., add more low powered base stations within macro networks) and enhance the coverage and capacity of Heterogeneous Networks. This is accomplished by designing Micro Cell for outdoor applications, Pico and Femtocell for indoor applications. It is shown that, there exists a free space propagation medium in all propagation environments due to Fresnel zones, and the path loss slope within this zone is similar to free space propagation medium. This forms the basis of our development of the present work. The salient feature of the proposed work has two main considerations (a) The cell radius of Small Cells must be within the first Fresnel zone break point, and (b) The minimum inter-cell distance must be greater than twice of Small Cell radius. The proposed network is simulated in real a radio network simulator called ATOLL. The simulation results showed that densify Small Cells not only enhanced the capacity and coverage of Heterogeneous Networks but also improved the carrier to interference ratio significantly. Since the proposed work allows UE (user equipment) to have Line of Sight (LOS) communication with the serving cell, and UE can have higher uplink (UL) signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) that will further allow UE to reduce its transmission power, which will consequently lead to a longer battery life for the UE and reduce the interference in the system