Performance analysis of cellular networks.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.Performance analysis in cellular networks is the determination of customer orientated grade-of-service parameters, such as call blocking and dropping probabilities, using the methods of stochastic theory. This stochastic theory analysis is built on certain assumptions regarding the arrival and service processes of user-offered calls in a network. In the past, cellular networks were analysed using the classical assumptions, Poisson call arrivals and negative exponential channel holding times, borrowed from earlier fixed network analysis. However, cellular networks are markedly different from fixed networks, in that, they afford the user a unique opportunity: the ability to communicate while on the move. User mobility and various other cellular network characteristics, such as customer-billing, cell· layout and hand·off mechanisms, generally invalidate the use of Poisson arrivals and negative exponential holding times. Recent measurements on live networks substantiate this view. Consequently, over the past few years, there has been a noticeable shift towards using more generalised arrival and service distributions in the performance analysis of cellular networks. However, two shortcomings with the resulting models are that they suffer from state space explosion and / or they represent hand off traffic as a state dependent mean arrival rate (thus ignoring the higher moments of the hand-off arrival process). This thesis's contribution to cellular network analysis is a moment-based approach that avoids full state space description but ensures that the hand-off arrival process is modelled beyond the first moment. The thesis considers a performance analysis model that is based on Poisson new call arrivals, generalised hand-off call arrivals and a variety of channel holding times. The thesis shows that the performance analysis of a cellular network may be loosely decomposed into three parts, a generic cell traffic characterising model, a generic cell traffic blocking model and a quality of service evaluation model. The cell traffic characterising model is employed to determine the mean and variance of hand-off traffic offered by a cell to its neighbour. The cell traffic-blocking model is used to detennine the blocking experienced by the various traffic streams offered to each cell. The quality of service evaluation part is essentially afued-point iteration of the cell traffic characterising and cell traffic blocking parts to determine customer orientated grade-of-service parameters such as blocking and dropping probabilities. The thesis also presents detailed mathematical models for user mobility modelling. Finally, the thesis provides extensive results to validate the proposed analysis and to illustrate the accuracy of the proposed analysis when compared to existing methods

Modelling and performance evaluation of wireless and mobile communication systems in heterogeneous environments

It is widely expected that next generation wireless communication systems will be heterogeneous, integrating a wide variety of wireless access networks. Of particular interest recently is the integration of cellular networks (GSM, GPRS, UMTS, EDGE and LTE) and wireless local area networks (WLANs) to provide complementary features in terms of coverage, capacity and mobility support. These different networks will work together using vertical handover techniques and hence understanding how well these mechanisms perform is a significant issue. In this thesis, these networks are modelled to yield performance results such as mean queue lengths and blocking probabilities over a range of different conditions. The results are then analysed using network constraints to yield operational graphs based on handover probabilities to different networks. Firstly, individual networks with horizontal handover are analysed using performability techniques. The thesis moves on to look at vertical handovers between cellular networks using pure performance models. Then the integration of cellular networks and WLAN is considered. While analysing these results it became clear that the common models that were being used were subjected to handover hysteresis resulting from feedback loops in the model. A new analytical model was developed which addressed this issue but was shown to be problematic in developing state probabilities for more complicated scenarios. Guard channels analysis, which is normally used to give priority to handover traffic in mobile networks, was employed as a practical solution to the observed handover hysteresis. Overall, using different analytical techniques as well as simulation, the results of this work form an important part in the design and development of future mobile systems

IMPACT OF DWELL TIME DISTRIBUTION ON LOCATION MANAGEMENT IN CELLULAR NETWORKS

This paper presents dwell time distribution based optimal reporting cell planning (RCP) for location management in wireless cellular networks. Dwell time parameter is critically dependent on users’ behavior within the network. The innate advantage of Percentile dwell time over the conventionally used absolute dwell time is that it can take only fixed values depending on the number of cells per location area. This helps tremendously in reducing the computational overhead and can be applied to any size of the network as long as the number of cells per location area remains constant. Consequently, the proposed percentile dwell time has been used to determine the optimal reporting cell-planning configuration such that the overall mobility management cost is minimized. Evidently, from the simulation result the proposed technique provides a clear edge of 14.28% improvement in cost reduction compared to the existing technique

Performance Analysis of Joint Base-Station Multiantenna Multibeam and Channel Assignment Scheme for Hierarchical Cellular System

Different from the traditional configuration of hierarchical cellular, we introduce the joint base-station multi-antenna multi-beam and channel assignment scheme for hierarchical cellular in this paper. The proposed scheme is based on multi-beam base-station antenna splitting in the elevation-radiating plane, and a dynamic channel allocation scheme by combining the adaptive antenna technologies. Simulation results show that the proposed configuration of the hierarchical cellular can enhance the spectral efficiency remarkably

On Channel Sharing Policies in LEO Mobile Satellite Systems

We consider a low earth orbit (LEO) mobile satellite system with "satellite-fixed" cells that accommodates new and handover calls of different service-classes. We provide an analytical framework for the efficient calculation of call blocking and handover failure probabilities under two channel sharing policies, namely the fixed channel reservation and the threshold call admission policies. Simulation results verify the accuracy of the proposed formulas. Furthermore, we discuss the applicability of the policies in software-defined LEO satellites

STOCHASTIC MODELING AND TIME-TO-EVENT ANALYSIS OF VOIP TRAFFIC

Voice over IP (VoIP) systems are gaining increased popularity due to the cost effectiveness, ease of management, and enhanced features and capabilities. Both enterprises and carriers are deploying VoIP systems to replace their TDM-based legacy voice networks. However, the lack of engineering models for VoIP systems has been realized by many researchers, especially for large-scale networks. The purpose of traffic engineering is to minimize call blocking probability and maximize resource utilization. The current traffic engineering models are inherited from the legacy PSTN world, and these models fall short from capturing the characteristics of new traffic patterns. The objective of this research is to develop a traffic engineering model for modern VoIP networks. We studied the traffic on a large-scale VoIP network and collected several billions of call information. Our analysis shows that the traditional traffic engineering approach based on the Poisson call arrival process and exponential holding time fails to capture the modern telecommunication systems accurately. We developed a new framework for modeling call arrivals as a non-homogeneous Poisson process, and we further enhanced the model by providing a Gaussian approximation for the cases of heavy traffic condition on large-scale networks. In the second phase of the research, we followed a new time-to-event survival analysis approach to model call holding time as a generalized gamma distribution and we introduced a Call Cease Rate function to model the call durations. The modeling and statistical work of the Call Arrival model and the Call Holding Time model is constructed, verified and validated using hundreds of millions of real call information collected from an operational VoIP carrier network. The traffic data is a mixture of residential, business, and wireless traffic. Therefore, our proposed models can be applied to any modern telecommunication system. We also conducted sensitivity analysis of model parameters and performed statistical tests on the robustness of the models’ assumptions. We implemented the models in a new simulation-based traffic engineering system called VoIP Traffic Engineering Simulator (VSIM). Advanced statistical and stochastic techniques were used in building VSIM system. The core of VSIM is a simulation system that consists of two different simulation engines: the NHPP parametric simulation engine and the non-parametric simulation engine. In addition, VSIM provides several subsystems for traffic data collection, processing, statistical modeling, model parameter estimation, graph generation, and traffic prediction. VSIM is capable of extracting traffic data from a live VoIP network, processing and storing the extracted information, and then feeding it into one of the simulation engines which in turn provides resource optimization and quality of service reports