Base Station controlled load balancing with handovers in Mobile WiMAX

Tämän diplomityön päätavoitteena on tutkia, kuinka kuorman tasaus voidaan suorittaa tukiaseman aloitteesta yhteysvastuun vaihdoilla mobiili WiMAX:ssa ja selvittää menetelmän potentiaalia edistää resurssien käyttöä sekä palvelun laatua koko systeemissä. Tavoitteena on myös tutkia alustavasti sitä, miten turvakaistoja voitaisiin varata ns. pelastavalle yhteysvastuun vaihdolle mobiili WiMAX:ssa, kuinka tämä vaikuttaisi kuorman tasaukseen ja kuinka nämä lähestymistavat voitaisiin yhdistää. Diplomityö sisältää koosteen IEEE 802.16e radiorajapintateknologian ja WiMAX Forum liityntäverkkoarkkitehtuurin tärkeimmistä elementeistä kuorman tasauksen ja yhteysvastuun vaihdon suhteen sekä kirjallisuuskatsauksen kuorman tasauksesta, sekä pelastavan yhteysvastuun vaihdon ja liikenteen priorisoinnista. Näiden perusteella suunniteltiin mobiili WiMAX:lle räätälöity resurssien käyttöön perustuva peruskuormantasausalgoritmi. Tämän lisäksi tehtiin muutama alustava ehdotus perusalgoritmia edistävistä menetelmistä. Näihin kuuluivat esimerkiksi kuorman tasauksen laukaisuun tarkoitetun kynnyksen automaattinen säätäminen, useiden kynnysten käyttäminen sekä resurssien varaukseen perustuva laukaisu, missä kuorman tasaus voidaan laukaista turvakaistojen suhteen. Lopuksi perusalgoritmi evaluoitiin staattisessa ympäristössä. Vaikka suoritetut simulaatiot eivät olleet laajamittaisia, perusalgoritmin parametreista ja yleisestä suorituskyvystä saatiin hyödyllistä informaatiota. Vaikka algoritmi suoriutui hyvin simuloidussa ympäristössä, aikaisemmin suunnitelluille edistäville menetelmille todettiin yleisesti ottaen selvä tarve. Tämän diplomityön pitäisi luoda hyvä pohja yhteysvastuun vaihtoon perustuvan kuorman tasauksen edelleen kehittämiselle ja evaluoinnille mobiili WiMAX:ssa. Tutkimuksen perusteella päädyttiin siihen johtopäätökseen, että kuorman tasaus yhteysvastuun vaihdolla voi olla todella tehokas tapa vapauttaa resursseja suurimmassa osassa ympäristöistä, mutta että turvakaistojen käyttöä tulisi silti harkita.The purpose of this thesis is to examine how load balancing with Base Station initiated directed handovers could be conducted in Mobile WiMAX and the potential it has to enhance Resource Utilization and QoS system wide. An additional goal of the thesis is also to conduct preliminary research on how guard bands for rescue handovers could be used in Mobile WiMAX, how this would affect load balancing and how these two approaches could be combined. The thesis includes a background study on the key system aspects of the IEEE 802.16e radio interface technology and WiMAX Forum Access Network Architecture in terms of load balancing and handovers and a literary review on load balancing, and system wide handover and traffic prioritization. Based on the gained knowledge a basic Resource Utilization based load balancing algorithm tailored for Mobile WiMAX is designed. Few preliminary enhancement proposals are also made in terms of e.g. automatic tuning of the triggering threshold, multiple threshold based triggering and Resource Reservation based triggering where load balancing can be triggered in relations to the reserved guard for rescue handovers and higher priority traffic. Finally preliminary evaluation of the basic algorithm in a static environment is conducted. Although the simulations are not extensive, beneficial information is obtained of the basic parameters of the algorithm and of the overall performance of the algorithm. Even though the basic algorithm performed well in the simulated environment, a clear need was recognized for the enhancements introduced earlier. All in all this thesis should form a very good basis for the further development and evaluation of handover based load balancing in Mobile WiMAX. Based on the study it was concluded that load balancing with directed handovers can be a very efficient way to release resources in most cases but the use of rescue handover guard bands should still be considered

Context awareness and related challenges: A comprehensive evaluation study for a context-based RAT selection scheme towards 5G networks

Ο αποτελεσματικός σχεδιασμός των δικτύων είναι απαραίτητος για να αντιμετωπιστεί ο αυξανόμενος αριθμός των συνδρομητών κινητού διαδικτύου και των απαιτητικών υπηρεσιών δεδομένων, που ανταγωνίζονται για περιορισμένους ασύρματους πόρους. Επιπλέον, οι βασικές προκλήσεις για τα συνεχώς αναπτυσσόμενα δίκτυα LTE είναι η αύξηση των δυνατοτήτων των υφιστάμενων μηχανισμών, η μείωση της υπερβολικής σηματοδότησης (signaling) και η αξιοποίηση ενός αποτελεσματικού μηχανισμού επιλογής τεχνολογίας ασύρματης πρόσβασης (RAT). Υπάρχουν ποικίλες προτάσεις στην βιβλιογραφία σχετικά με αυτές τις προκλήσεις, μερικές από τις οποίες παρουσιάζονται εδώ. Ο σκοπός της εργασίας αυτής είναι να ερευνήσει τις τρέχουσες εξελίξεις στα δίκτυα LTE σχετικά με την ενσωμάτωση EPC και WiFi και την επίγνωση πλαισίου (context awareness) στην διαχείριση κινητικότητας, και να προτείνει τον αλγόριθμο COmpAsS, έναν μηχανισμό που χρησιμοποιεί ασαφή λογική (fuzzy logic) για να επιλέξει την πιο κατάλληλη τεχνολογία ασύρματης πρόσβασης για τα κινητά. Επιπλέον, έχουμε ποσοτικοποιήσει το κόστος σηματοδότησης του προτεινόμενου μηχανισμού σε σύνδεση με τις σημερινές προδιαγραφές του 3GPP και εκτελέσαμε μια ολοκληρωμένη ανάλυση. Τέλος, αξιολογήσαμε τον αλγόριθμο μέσω εκτεταμένων προσομοιώσεων σε ένα πολύπλοκο και ρεαλιστικό σενάριο χρήσης 5G, που απεικονίζονται τα σαφή πλεονεκτήματα της προσέγγισής μας όσον αφορά τη συχνότητα μεταπομπών (handover) και τις μετρήσεις βασικών QoS τιμών, όπως ρυθμός μετάδοσης και καθυστέρηση.Effective network planning is essential to cope with the increasing number of mobile internet subscribers and bandwidth-intensive services competing for limited wireless resources. Additionally, key challenges for the constantly growing LTE networks is increasing capabilities of current mechanisms, reduction of signaling overhead and the utilization of an effective Radio Access Technology (RAT) selection scheme. There have been various proposals in literature regarding these challenges, some of which are discussed here. The purpose of this work is to research the current advances in LTE networks regarding EPC - WiFi integration and context awareness in mobility management, and propose the COmpAsS algorithm, a mechanism using fuzzy logic to select the most suitable Radio Access Technology. Furthermore, we quantify the signaling overhead of the proposed mechanism by linking it to the current 3GPP specifications and performing a comprehensive analysis. Finally, we evaluate the novel scheme via extensive simulations in a complex and realistic 5G use case, illustrating the clear advantages of our approach in terms of handover frequency and key QoS metrics, i.e. the user-experienced throughput and delay

Comparison of Picocell and DAS Configuration with HSPA Evolution

As demand of mobile data services has grown exponentially, it has increased pressure on mobile operators to enhance capacity in dense urban areas. Usage of internet and services related to mobile network has grown up. UMTS specification has been updated in order to cope with an increased amount of mobile data traffic. These upgrades and releases are based on international standards. HSDPA and HSUPA technologies are previous upgrades of UMTS network but now HSPA Evolution (HSPA+) is the upgraded version for UMTS. HSPA+ improves performance of mobile data transmission in downlink direction. Previously UMTS enabled user data of 384 kbps that was upgraded to 14.4 Mbps in downlink and 5.76 Mbps in uplink data rate by HSPA. But still the demand of data rate is increasing so HSPA+ upgraded UMTS to 21.1 Mbps in downlink and 5.76 Mbps in uplink. Due to these improvements in data rates, HSPA+ has become one of the striking choices for mobile operators. It has been forecasted that amount of data users will increase in future and this will set new challenges for mobile operators. The network is planned in such a way that more capacity is provided to places where more users are present. Most of the network traffic in dense urban area is generated by indoor users. Indoor planning is mostly done with multiple picocells or DAS configuration. The main differences between these two configurations are interference, total capacity, cost of the equipment and implementation. In this Master’s thesis, the main focus is to compare picocells and DAS configuration for HSPA+ by simulations and measurements. Several mobile terminals were used to generate low and high loads for HSPA+ network. These comparisons were made by analyzing the results for signal to interference ratio, total network throughput and several other indicators. The results showed that DAS outperforms picocells in low/high load conditions in terms of SIR, cell throughput and modulation technique. DAS is good choice for medium sized building due to handover free regions and smooth coverage. /Kir1

Wireless Backhaul Architectures for 5G Networks

This thesis investigates innovative wireless backhaul deployment strategies for dense small cells. In particular, the work focuses on improving the resource utilisation, reliability and energy efficiency of future wireless backhaul networks by increasing and exploiting the flexibility of the network. The wireless backhaul configurations and topology management schemes proposed in this thesis consider a dense urban area scenario with static users as well as an ultra-dense outdoor small cell scenario with vehicular traffic (pedestrians, bus users and car users). Moreover, a diverse range of traffic types such as file transfer, ultra-high definition (UHD) on-demand and real-time video streaming are used. In the first part of this thesis, novel dynamic two-tier Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture is employed in backhaul network to facilitate complex network management tasks including multi-tenancy resource sharing and energy-aware topology management. The results show the proposed architecture can deliver efficient resource utilisation, and QoS guarantee. The second part of the thesis presents wireless backhaul architectures that serve ultra-dense outdoor small cells installed on street-level fixtures. The characteristics of vehicular communications including diverse mobility patterns and unevenly distributed traffic are investigated. The system-level performance of two key technologies for 5G backhaul are compared: massive MIMO backhaul using sub-6GHz band and millimetre (mm)-wave backhaul in the 71 – 76 GHz band. Finally, innovative wireless backhaul architectures delivered from street fibre cabinets for ultra-dense outdoor small cells with vehicular traffic is proposed, which can effectively minimise the need for additional sites, power and fibre infrastructure. Multi-hop backhaul configurations are presented in order to bring in an extra level of flexibility, and thus, improve the coverage of a street cabinet mm-wave backhaul network as well as distribute traffic loads

C-Band Airport Surface Communications System Standards Development. Phase II Final Report. Volume 2: Test Bed Performance Evaluation and Final AeroMACS Recommendations

This report is provided as part of ITT s NASA Glenn Research Center Aerospace Communication Systems Technical Support (ACSTS) contract NNC05CA85C, Task 7: New ATM Requirements-Future Communications, C-Band and L-Band Communications Standard Development and was based on direction provided by FAA project-level agreements for New ATM Requirements-Future Communications. Task 7 included two subtasks. Subtask 7-1 addressed C-band (5091- to 5150-MHz) airport surface data communications standards development, systems engineering, test bed and prototype development, and tests and demonstrations to establish operational capability for the Aeronautical Mobile Airport Communications System (AeroMACS). Subtask 7-2 focused on systems engineering and development support of the L-band digital aeronautical communications system (L-DACS). Subtask 7-1 consisted of two phases. Phase I included development of AeroMACS concepts of use, requirements, architecture, and initial high-level safety risk assessment. Phase II builds on Phase I results and is presented in two volumes. Volume I is devoted to concepts of use, system requirements, and architecture, including AeroMACS design considerations. Volume II (this document) describes an AeroMACS prototype evaluation and presents final AeroMACS recommendations. This report also describes airport categorization and channelization methodologies. The purposes of the airport categorization task were (1) to facilitate initial AeroMACS architecture designs and enable budgetary projections by creating a set of airport categories based on common airport characteristics and design objectives, and (2) to offer high-level guidance to potential AeroMACS technology and policy development sponsors and service providers. A channelization plan methodology was developed because a common global methodology is needed to assure seamless interoperability among diverse AeroMACS services potentially supplied by multiple service providers

Performance evaluation of user mobility on QoS classes in a 3G network

The popularity of IP services is increasing and the demand for managing traffic with different QoS classes has become more challenging. The stability of the system is affected by the rate of voice traffic. Mobility allows users to be connected at all time where handover may occur as it is not always possible to be connected to the same base station. Mobility and handover cause severe interference, which affects overall throughput and capacity of the system. The system requires greater capacity with more coverage area. This study deals with the impact of user mobility on voice quality in IP based application in a 3G Network. The aim is to improve the system performance in mixed traffic environment. A mathematical model is used to analyse the impact of using different type of coder on packet end-to-end delay and packet loss. The simulation results indicate that types of coder affect the system performance. Application of scheduling based on weight and load balancing technique can improve the system performance. The deployment of scheduling based on weight and a load balancing technique have been investigated to reduce the end-to-end delay and to improve overall performance in mixed traffic environment. The results under different conditions are analysed and it is found that by applying scheduling scheme, the quality of voice communication can be improved. In addition, load balancing technique can be used to improve the performance of the system. Apart from the decrease in delay, the technique can increase the capacity of the system and the overall stability of the system can be further improved. Finally, network security is another important aspect of network administration. Security policies have to be defined and implemented so that critical sections of the network are protected against unwarranted traffic or unauthorized personnel. The impact of implementing IPSec has been tested for voice communication over IP in a 3G network. Implementing the security protocol does not significantly degrade the performance of the system.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Proceedings of the Fifth International Mobile Satellite Conference 1997

Satellite-based mobile communications systems provide voice and data communications to users over a vast geographic area. The users may communicate via mobile or hand-held terminals, which may also provide access to terrestrial communications services. While previous International Mobile Satellite Conferences have concentrated on technical advances and the increasing worldwide commercial activities, this conference focuses on the next generation of mobile satellite services. The approximately 80 papers included here cover sessions in the following areas: networking and protocols; code division multiple access technologies; demand, economics and technology issues; current and planned systems; propagation; terminal technology; modulation and coding advances; spacecraft technology; advanced systems; and applications and experiments

Context-aware Self-Optimization in Small-Cell Networks

Most mobile communications take place at indoor environments, especially in commercial and corporate scenarios. These places normally present coverage and capacity issues due to the poor signal quality, which degrade the end-user Quality of Experience (QoE). In these cases, mobile operators are offering small cells to overcome the indoor issues, being femtocells the main deployed base stations. Femtocell networks provide significant benefits to mobile operators and their clients. However, the massive integration and the particularities of femtocells, make the maintenance of these infrastructures a challenge for engineers. In this sense, Self-Organizing Networks (SON) techniques play an important role. These techniques are a key feature to intelligently automate network operation, administration and management procedures. SON mechanisms are based on the analysis of the mobile network alarms, counters and indicators. In parallel, electronics, sensors and software applications evolve rapidly and are everywhere. Thanks to this, valuable context information can be gathered, which properly managed can improve SON techniques performance. Within possible context data, one of the most active topics is the indoor positioning due to the immediate interest on indoor location-based services (LBS). At indoor commercial and corporate environments, user densities and traffic vary in spatial and temporal domain. These situations lead to degrade cellular network performance, being temporary traffic fluctuations and focused congestions one of the most common issues. Load balancing techniques, which have been identified as a use case in self-optimization paradigm for Long Term Evolution (LTE), can alleviate these congestion problems. This use case has been widely studied in macrocellular networks and outdoor scenarios. However, the particularities of femtocells, the characteristics of indoor scenarios and the influence of users’ mobility pattern justify the development of new solutions. The goal of this PhD thesis is to design and develop novel and automatic solutions for temporary traffic fluctuations and focused network congestion issues in commercial and corporate femtocell environments. For that purpose, the implementation of an efficient management architecture to integrate context data into the mobile network and SON mechanisms is required. Afterwards, an accurate indoor positioning system is developed, as a possible inexpensive solution for context-aware SON. Finally, advanced self-optimization methods to shift users from overloaded cells to other cells with spare resources are designed. These methods tune femtocell configuration parameters based on network information, such as ratio of active users, and context information, such as users’ position. All these methods are evaluated in both a dynamic LTE system-level simulator and in a field-trial

Performance evaluation of a 40 GHz broadband cellular system

Doutoramento em Engenharia ElectrónicaO trabalho apresentado nesta tese enquadra-se na área das comunicações móveis celulares e tem subjacente a utilização de um protótipo de um sistema de comunicações móveis de banda larga desenvolvido no âmbito do projecto Europeu SAMBA. Este protótipo apresenta como principais características inovadoras as taxas de transmissão, a frequência de operação, a mobilidade e os protocolos de handover rádio. Inicialmente são descritos aspectos relacionados com a evolução das comunicações móveis ao longo do tempo e apresentados conceitos teóricos fundamentais para compreender o comportamento do canal rádio móvel e os mecanismos de propagação. São identificados os tipos de desvanecimento e descritos os vários parâmetros que permitem caracterizar o canal rádio. A descrição do impacto do desvanecimento e as formas de o mitigar são apresentadas para contextualizar o trabalho desenvolvido em termos da especificação do protótipo e as opções escolhidas. As características globais do protótipo são apresentadas o que inclui a descrição do interface rádio, da arquitectura, dos módulos de RF, dos módulos de processamento de banda base, protocolos e algoritmo de transferência rádio. O protótipo foi avaliado em vários cenários com diferentes características. No cenário exterior foi analisada uma rua urbana típica do tipo canyon. Em termos de configuração do sistema foram consideradas e analisadas várias alturas da Estação Base, anglos de inclinação das antenas, várias velocidades da Terminal Móvel, operação com e sem linha de vista e a penetração do sinal rádio em ruas transversais. No cenário interior foram realizados testes similares e medidas relativas às transferências que só foram executadas para este cenário por questões logísticas. Numa primeira abordagem foi analisada a cobertura oferecida por cada célula e posteriormente activada a funcionalidade de transferência. Foram também efectuados estudos com uma única Estação Base cobrindo toda a área. Em termos de caracterização do canal rádio em banda larga são apresentadas medidas da resposta impulsiva para dois cenários interiores e complementados por outros estudos via simulação utilizando uma ferramenta de ray tracing. Nas medidas foi utilizado um método de medição do canal no domínio da frequência. A relação entre o Espalhamento do Atraso e a Banda de Coerência em diferentes cenários foi analisada em detalhe e feita a verificação em termos da violação do limite teórico de Fleury. Como consequência dos tópicos abordados, esta tese apresenta um estudo abrangente de aspectos relacionados com o comportamento do canal rádio na faixa dos 40 GHz e a análise das opções técnicas do protótipo em termos do seu desempenho no âmbito dos sistemas de comunicações móveis 4G.The work presented in this thesis addresses the area of mobile cellular broadband communications and encompasses the utilization of a prototype developed in the framework of the European project SAMBA. This prototype has as main innovative characteristics the transmission rates, the frequency band of operation, the mobility and the radio handover protocols. Initially are described aspects related with the historical evolution of the mobile communications and presented fundamental theoretical concepts to understand the behaviour of the radio channel and the propagation mechanisms. The different types of fading are identified as well as the various parameters that allow the characterisation of the radio channel. The fading impact and its mitigation techniques are presented to contextualise the work developed in terms of the specification of the features implemented in the prototype and the options available. The global characteristic of the prototype are presented namely the radio interface, the architecture, the RF modules, the baseband modules, protocols and the algorithm for the radio handover. The prototype was evaluated in various scenarios with different characteristics. In the outdoor scenario a canyon type street was analysed. Several heights of the Base Station, antenna tilting angles, Mobile Terminal velocities, operation in line-of-sight and non line-of-sight and the penetration of the signal in a transversal street. In the indoor scenario similar measurements were performed. The handover feature was analysed just for this scenario due to logistic reasons. In a first phase the coverage provided by each Base Station was analysed and subsequently activated the handover functionality. Studies using a single Base Station to cover the whole pavilion were also performed. In terms of broadband analysis, channel impulse response measurements were performed using a frequency domain technique in two scenarios and complemented by others analysed only using a ray tracing simulation tool. The relationship between the radio channel Delay Spread and the Coherence Bandwidth was analysed in different scenarios and the possible violation of the Fleury lower bond checked. As a consequence of the several topics covered in this thesis, a deep study of the aspects related with the behaviour of the radio channel in the 40 GHz band and the performance of the technical options implemented in the prototype is presented in the framework of 4G mobile communication systems

Proceedings of the Third International Mobile Satellite Conference (IMSC 1993)

Satellite-based mobile communications systems provide voice and data communications to users over a vast geographic area. The users may communicate via mobile or hand-held terminals, which may also provide access to terrestrial cellular communications services. While the first and second International Mobile Satellite Conferences (IMSC) mostly concentrated on technical advances, this Third IMSC also focuses on the increasing worldwide commercial activities in Mobile Satellite Services. Because of the large service areas provided by such systems, it is important to consider political and regulatory issues in addition to technical and user requirements issues. Topics covered include: the direct broadcast of audio programming from satellites; spacecraft technology; regulatory and policy considerations; advanced system concepts and analysis; propagation; and user requirements and applications