Radio network planning in mobile cellular communication systems

Abstract

The successful deployment of a cellular system depends greatly upon the cellular network planning process which includes such operations as transmission and radio propagation predictions, geographical and traffic parameters evaluation, optimal radio network design, and network resource allocation. Among them, the importance of optimal radio network design and network resource allocation is ever-increasing now. This thesis has dealt with some optimization models for radio network planning, especially related to radio network design and network resource allocation, in mobile cellular communication systems. First, a radio network design problem is considered in a cellular CDMA system, in which blocking is enforced when the relative interference exceeds a certain threshold level. Given the data of call-traffic distributed over the service area and potential sites of base stations, the objective of the problem is to locate base stations so as to minimize the associated cost for establishing base stations while keeping the probability of blocking under control. An efficient algorithm for solving the design problem is developed. Computational experiments with real-world data are conducted to show both the efficiency and the practicality of the proposed design method. Computational results showed that the proposed algorithm consistently performed well both in solution quality and in speed as to be practicable. The rapid growth of users and rising subscriber expectations have led cellular network operators to deploy microcells in the urban areas, especially in hot spots. Our second model deals with the so-called micro Base Station Location Problem (mBSLP) for the urban cellular environment, the objective of which to locate mBSs with minimum cost over a specified coverage region so that the signal at various mobile station locations is of sufficient intensity, while the overlapped areas are minimized. For the mBSLP, a heuristic algorithm was developed, and computer sim...