Performance analysis of downlink shared channels in a UMTS network

In light of the expected growth in wireless data communications and the commonly anticipated up/downlink asymmetry, we present a performance analysis of downlink data transfer over \textsc{d}ownlink \textsc{s}hared \textsc{ch}annels (\textsc{dsch}s), arguably the most efficient \textsc{umts} transport channel for medium-to-large data transfers. It is our objective to provide qualitative insight in the different aspects that influence the data \textsc{q}uality \textsc{o}f \textsc{s}ervice (\textsc{qos}). As a most principal factor, the data traffic load affects the data \textsc{qos} in two distinct manners: {\em (i)} a heavier data traffic load implies a greater competition for \textsc{dsch} resources and thus longer transfer delays; and {\em (ii)} since each data call served on a \textsc{dsch} must maintain an \textsc{a}ssociated \textsc{d}edicated \textsc{ch}annel (\textsc{a}-\textsc{dch}) for signalling purposes, a heavier data traffic load implies a higher interference level, a higher frame error rate and thus a lower effective aggregate \textsc{dsch} throughput: {\em the greater the demand for service, the smaller the aggregate service capacity.} The latter effect is further amplified in a multicellular scenario, where a \textsc{dsch} experiences additional interference from the \textsc{dsch}s and \textsc{a}-\textsc{dch}s in surrounding cells, causing a further degradation of its effective throughput. Following an insightful two-stage performance evaluation approach, which segregates the interference aspects from the traffic dynamics, a set of numerical experiments is executed in order to demonstrate these effects and obtain qualitative insight in the impact of various system aspects on the data \textsc{qos}

LAPRA: Location-aware Proactive Resource Allocation

Today’s indoor wireless networks employ reactive resource allocation methods to provide fair and efficient usage of the communication system. However, their reactive nature limits the quality of service (QoS) that can be offered to the user locations within the environment. In large crowded areas (airports, conferences), networks can get congested and users may suffer from poor QoS. To mitigate this, we propose and evaluate a location-aware user-centric proactive resource allocation approach (LAPRA), in which the users are proactive and seek good channel quality by moving to locations where the signal quality is good. As a result, the users and their locations are optimized to improve the overall QoS. We demonstrate that the proposed proactive approach enhances the user QoS and improves network throughput of the system

End-to-End Simulation of 5G mmWave Networks

Due to its potential for multi-gigabit and low latency wireless links, millimeter wave (mmWave) technology is expected to play a central role in 5th generation cellular systems. While there has been considerable progress in understanding the mmWave physical layer, innovations will be required at all layers of the protocol stack, in both the access and the core network. Discrete-event network simulation is essential for end-to-end, cross-layer research and development. This paper provides a tutorial on a recently developed full-stack mmWave module integrated into the widely used open-source ns--3 simulator. The module includes a number of detailed statistical channel models as well as the ability to incorporate real measurements or ray-tracing data. The Physical (PHY) and Medium Access Control (MAC) layers are modular and highly customizable, making it easy to integrate algorithms or compare Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) numerologies, for example. The module is interfaced with the core network of the ns--3 Long Term Evolution (LTE) module for full-stack simulations of end-to-end connectivity, and advanced architectural features, such as dual-connectivity, are also available. To facilitate the understanding of the module, and verify its correct functioning, we provide several examples that show the performance of the custom mmWave stack as well as custom congestion control algorithms designed specifically for efficient utilization of the mmWave channel.Comment: 25 pages, 16 figures, submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (revised Jan. 2018

Mobility Analysis and Management for Heterogeneous Networks

The global mobile data traffic has increased tremendously in the last decade due to the technological advancement in smartphones. Their endless usage and bandwidth-intensive applications will saturate current 4G technologies and has motivated the need for concrete research in order to sustain the mounting data traffic demand. In this regard, the network densification has shown to be a promising direction to cope with the capacity demands in future 5G wireless networks. The basic idea is to deploy several low power radio access nodes called small cells closer to the users on the existing large radio foot print of macrocells, and this constitutes a heterogeneous network (HetNet). However, there are many challenges that operators face with the dense HetNet deployment. The mobility management becomes a challenging task due to triggering of frequent handovers when a user moves across the network coverage areas. When there are fewer users associated in certain small cells, this can lead to significant increase in the energy consumption. Intelligently switching them to low energy consumption modes or turning them off without seriously degrading user performance is desirable in order to improve the energy savings in HetNets. This dynamic power level switching in the small cells, however, may cause unnecessary handovers, and it becomes important to ensure energy savings without compromising handover performance. Finally, it is important to evaluate mobility management schemes in real network deployments, in order to find any problems affecting the quality of service (QoS) of the users. The research presented in this dissertation aims to address these challenges. First, to tackle the mobility management issue, we develop a closed form, analytical model to study the handover and ping-pong performance as a function of network parameters in the small cells, and verify its performance using simulations. Secondly, we incorporate fuzzy logic based game-theoretic framework to address and examine the energy efficiency improvements in HetNets. In addition, we design fuzzy inference rules for handover decisions and target base station selection is performed through a fuzzy ranking technique in order to enhance the mobility robustness, while also considering energy/spectral efficiency. Finally, we evaluate the mobility performance by carrying out drive test in an existing 4G long term evolution (LTE) network deployment using software defined radios (SDR). This helps to obtain network quality information in order to find any problems affecting the QoS of the users

Efficient Routing and Scheduling in Wireless Networks

The temporal and spatial variation in wireless channel conditions, node mobility make it challenging to design protocols for wireless networks. In this thesis, we design efficient routing and scheduling algorithms which adapt to changing network conditions caused by varying link quality or node mobility to improve user-level performance. We design and analyze routing protocols for static, mobile and heterogeneous wireless networks. We analyze the performance of opportunistic and cooperative forwarding in static mesh networks showing that opportunism outperforms cooperation; we identify interference as the main cause for mitigating the potential gains achievable with cooperative forwarding. For mobile networks, we quantitatively analyze the tradeoff between state information collection (sampling frequency and number of bits per sample) and power consumption for a fixed source-to-destination goodput constraint. For heterogeneous networks comprising of both static and mobile nodes, we propose a greedy algorithm (adaptive-flood) which dynamically classifies individual nodes as routers/flooders depending on network conditions and demonstrate that it achieves performance equivalent to, and in some cases significantly better than, that of network-wide routing or flooding alone. Last, we consider an application-level wireless streaming scenario where multiple clients are streaming different videos from a cellular base station. We design a greedy algorithm for efficiently scheduling multiple video streams from a base station to mobile clients so as to minimize the total number of application-playout stalls. We develop models for coarse timescale wireless channel variation to aid network and application-layer protocol design

Soft handover issues in radio resource management for 3G WCDMA networks

PhDMobile terminals allow users to access services while on the move. This unique feature has driven the rapid growth in the mobile network industry, changing it from a new technology into a massive industry within less than two decades. Handover is the essential functionality for dealing with the mobility of the mobile users. Compared with the conventional hard handover employed in the GSM mobile networks, the soft handover used in IS-95 and being proposed for 3G has better performance on both link and system level. Previous work on soft handover has led to several algorithms being proposed and extensive research has been conducted on the performance analysis and parameters optimisation of these algorithms. Most of the previous analysis focused on the uplink direction. However, in future mobile networks, the downlink is more likely to be the bottleneck of the system capacity because of the asymmetric nature of new services, such as Internet traffic. In this thesis, an in-depth study of the soft handover effects on the downlink direction of WCDMA networks is carried out, leading to a new method of optimising soft handover for maximising the downlink capacity and a new power control approach