Indoor Planning for High Speed Downlink Packet Access in WCDMA Cellular Network

The aim of this paper is to show the special characteristics of the indoor environment related to radio propagation and furthermore to radio network planning. The aspects of the radio network planning are highlighted especially for Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) radio access technology that is used widely in the third generation mobile networks. Moreover, the detailed planning parameters in indoor environment are studied for High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) in order to support high throughput data applications in Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). The final target of the paper is to compare pico cell, distributed antenna system (DAS), and radiating cable network configurations in indoor environment to provide the optimal radio conditions for the data applications, and thus to serve highest number of mobile users. Several measurement campaigns with different antenna configurations have been conducted in order to study the effect of multi path related parameters, as delay spread of the signal. Also other capacity related parameters as received signal levels, interference, throughput, and transmit power levels have been studied in order to find out the optimal solution for HSDPA in UMTS. The results clearly show that pico cells and distributed antenna system have outstanding performance in indoor propagation channel compared to radiating cable. In sense of signal quality, pico cell performance is slightly better compared to distributed antenna system. However, measurements with HSDPA indicate that practical capacity of DAS outperforms pico cells. The measurements also show that separation of the antennas is a key capacity related parameter when planning WCDMA based indoor systems.     

An improved mechanism for multiple MBMS sessions assignment in B3G cellular networks

In Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), the downlink capacity is limited by the base station transmission power. Therefore, power control plays an important role to minimize the transmitted power shared among unicast and multicast users within a cell. In Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS), power control targets to the efficient utilization of radio and network resources. However, the expected high demand for such services stresses the need for an efficient scheme, capable of dynamically allocating radio resources to parallel MBMS sessions. This paper proposes a power control mechanism for efficient MBMS session assignment in next generation UMTS networks. The mechanism shares efficiently the available power resources of UMTS base stations to MBMS sessions running in the network. Furthermore, the mechanism is evaluated through several realistic scenarios and the results indicate the ability of the mechanism to utilize efficiently the radio resources and to ensure the service continuity when parallel MBMS services run in the network. Our approach is compared with current 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) approaches, such as these presented in TS 25.346 and in TR 25.922, in order to highlight the enhancements that it provides.     

Iterative space-time soft interference cancellation for UMTS-FDD uplink

Two efficient pilot-aided iterative space-time interference cancellation receivers are studied in order to increase the uplink capacity of the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) in frequency-division duplex (FDD) mode. Both iterative schemes use low-complexity beamforming and path combining techniques associated with soft-input soft-output decoding to mitigate the multiple-access interference in space and time. The difference between the two techniques is in the way they deal with unknown channels: the addition of a space-time channel estimation in each iteration on the one hand and iterative adaptive beamforming and path combining on the other hand. Thanks to the iterative structure, the observation signal used for estimation or adaptation contains less interference from one iteration to the following, and soft estimates of coded bits are available for data-aided estimation or adaptation. A detailed complexity analysis shows that renewing beamforming and path combining in each iteration without a-priori knowledge of the channel has no significant impact on the overall complexity of one iteration. Simulations of true UMTS-FDD uplink communications over a wideband directional channel model reveal that near-single user performance can be obtained for very high system loads, whereas more conventional receivers, such as the interference canceller without beamforming and the two-dimensional RAKE receiver, fail in recovering the transmitted information.     

UMTS radio network planning — maximizing return on investment

This article describes, based on the fundamentals of GSM radio network planning, the process of planning and optimizing UMTS networks. It highlights the key differences to existing 2G technologies and explains why UMTS radio network optimization is so complex that it cannot be done manually any more. This article gives some examples of cost efficient UMTS radio network enhancements in order to maximize future network capacities. It explains how UMTS return on investment is influenced by using advanced methods for radio network planning and optimization.     

UMTS — the mobile part of broadband communications for the next century

This paper outlines the path from developing broadband ISDN/ATM systems towards the European vision of the next generation mobile system — Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS).The capabilities of UMTS in terms of services and features compared to the second generation mobile system GSM, and the network technologies behind N-ISDN and B-ISDN, are discussed with proposals for technical developments to satisfy the UMTS requirements. The UMTS radio interface aspects are described and considerations on the network requirements to support these radio aspects are discussed.The requirements within the network for control, switching and transport to support the mobility, service and interconnecting network aspects of UMTS are outlined in conjunction with the technical solutions currently under discussion and some latest thoughts on a potential high-level architecture     

Cross-layer scheduling strategy for UMTS downlink enhancement

This article describes the benefits of including cross-layer information in the scheduling mechanism of a UMTS downlink channel. In particular, the information obtained from the fast power control algorithm is used to properly schedule transmissions. A prioritization function that exploits the short-term channel variations is proposed. This strategy is shown to be a feasible approach to improve system performance in terms of capacity and delay. This enhancement is obtained as a benefit of intrinsic multi-user diversity. The proposal is applicable within the current UMTS radio resource management framework.     

Hotspot wireless LANs to enhance the performance of 3G and beyond cellular networks

At present, WLANs supporting broadband multimedia communications are being developed and deployed around the world. Standards include HIPERLAN/2 defined by ETSI BRAN and the 802.11 family defined by the IEEE. These systems provide channel adaptive data rates up to 54 Mb/s (in a 20 MHz channel spacing) over short ranges up to 200 m. The HIPERLAN/2 standard also specifies a flexible radio access network that can be used with a variety of core networks, including UMTS. It is likely that WLANs will become an important complementary technology to 3G cellular systems and will typically be used to provide hotspot coverage. In this article the complementary use of WLANs in conjunction with UMTS is presented. In order to quantify the capacity enhancement and benefits of cellular/hotspot interworking we have combined novel ray tracing, software-simulated physical layer performance results, and optimal base station deployment analysis. The study focuses on an example deployment using key lamppost mounted WLAN access points to increase the performance (in terms of capacity) of a cellular network.     

Geometry modeling in cellular network planning

To design a cellular radio network (GSM, UMTS, WiFi …) it is indispensable today to use a radio planning software. In current commercialized tools, radio network planning is based on a numerical evaluation of a set of radio metrics, directly linked to quality of service notion, such as interference, throughput, coverage, capacity … The network configurations produced by such tools are generally faced with the human expert judgment who attaches great importance to the organizational aspects such as cells size and the topology. In other words, all those concepts related to the visual cells shape and geometry. In this article we emphasize the simplicity and the strength by which the geometrical concepts helps to bring out good network properties which are not taken into account by conventional radio criteria. On one hand, well-formed cells lead to reduce the number of handover calls, and to form transition zones between cells allowing proper completion of the handover procedure. On the other hand, cell geometry optimization produce performing network schemes in which the frequencies reuse (frequencies planning in GSM, WiFi) is simplified. We describe in this paper an original and practical modeling of the cellular geometry criteria granting the integration of this concept into the automatic planning process of mobile radio networks. The relevance of this criterion is assessed on three different levels. On a local level, we first establish the correlation between the geometric criteria and the improvement of point-by-point radio quality indicators. We secondly show geometry impact on radio frequency planning and the improving of the handover zones. Finally we analyze the impact of geometric criterion on improving indoor positioning systems.     

Automated optimization of service coverage and base station antenna configuration in UMTS networks

Deployment and maintenance of UMTS networks involve optimizing a number of network configuration parameters in order to meet various service and performance requirements. In this article we address automated optimization of service coverage and radio base station antenna configuration. We consider three key configuration parameters: transmit power of the common pilot channel (CPICH), antenna tilt, and antenna azimuth. CPICH power greatly influences coverage. From a resource management point of view, satisfying the coverage requirement using minimum CPICH power offers several performance advantages. In particular, less CPICH power leads to less interference and higher system capacity. Optimal CPICH power, in its turn, is highly dependent on how the other two parameters, tilt and azimuth, are configured at radio base station antennas. Optimizing antenna tilt and azimuth network-wise, with the objective of minimizing the CPICH power consumption, is a challenging task. The solution approach in this article adopts automated optimization. Our optimization engine is a simulated annealing algorithm. Staring from an initial configuration, the algorithm searches effectively in the solution space of possible configurations in order to find improvements. The algorithm is computationally efficient; thus, we can optimize large networks without using excessive computing resources. We present a case study for a UMTS planning scenario in Lisbon. For this network, automated optimization saves up to 70 percent of the CPICH power used in the reference network configuration. In addition, the optimized network configuration offers significant performance improvement in terms of fewer overloaded cells and lower downlink load factor     

TCP/IP Data Transfer over the DECT Air Interface with Multibearer Capability and Support of Asymmetric Flows

This works aims at evaluating achievable performance for TCP/IP data transfer over DECT radio interface, by verifying the ability of DECT lower layers protocols, namely DLC and MAC, to mask the radio interface unreliability and to provide flexible transfer means for TCP data. Major points are: (i) the interplay of error recovery mechanisms at the various layers; (ii) the effectiveness of providing multibearer capabilities (i.e. allowing slot bundling in the radio access); (iii) the possible gains brought about by MAC asymmetric connections in view of essentially asymmetric TCP data flows.Obtained results indicate that satisfactory performance can be obtained, since the lower layers recovery functions are able to mask even a rather pessimistic radio channel behavior as here assumed. This comes at the price of about half of the gross available capacity, because of static overhead and radio channel impairments, which is anyway in the order of (often less than) typical overhead due to radiocommunication protecting codes, e.g., as defined in GSM, UMTS, CDPD.     

Link Error Analysis and Modeling for Video Streaming Cross‐Layer Design in Mobile Communication Networks

Particularly in wireless communications, link errors severely affect the quality of the services due to the high error probability and the specific error characteristics (burst errors) in the radio access part of the network. In this work, we show that thorough analysis and appropriate modeling of radio‐link error behavior are essential to evaluate and optimize higher layer protocols and services. They are also the basis for finding network‐aware cross‐layer processing algorithms which are capable of exploiting the specific properties of the link error statistics, such as predictability. This document presents the analysis of the radio link errors based on measurements in live Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) radio access networks as well as new link error models originating from that analysis. It is shown that the knowledge of the specific link error characteristics leads to significant improvements in the quality of streamed video by applying the proposed novel network‐ and content‐aware cross‐layer scheduling algorithms. Although based on live UMTS network experience, many of the conclusions in this work are of general validity and are not limited to UMTS only.     

Intelligent antenna solutions for UMTS: algorithms and simulation results

This article outlines the development of intelligent antenna (IA) solutions for UMTS, a third-generation W-CDMA system. Since the selection of an antenna configuration paired with realizable uplink/downlink algorithms that can satisfy all operating environments is a broad task, this article focus is on cost-effective antenna arrays for macrocells. Algorithms that exploit the antenna configurations and act at both the physical and MAC layers are highlighted and supported by simulation results. Two solutions stand out for UMTS: a universal beamforming algorithm that unifies user-specific and fixed beamforming under one framework, and multibeam scheduling (MBS) that significantly increases downlink packet data throughput using the concept of code reuse in conjunction with beamforming. The article summarizes the critical issues that were faced in the development of an IA solution capable of delivering the theoretically promised benefits to end users.     

Software radio architecture with smart antennas: a tutorial onalgorithms and complexity

There has been considerable interest in using antenna arrays in wireless communication networks to increase the capacity and decrease the cochannel interference. Adaptive beamforming with smart antennas at the receiver increases the carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR) in a wireless link. This paper considers a wireless network with beamforming capabilities at the receiver which allows two or more transmitters to share the same channel to communicate with the base station. The concrete computational complexity and algorithm structure of a base station are considered in terms of a software radio system model, initially with an omnidirectional antenna. The software radio computational model is then expanded to characterize a network with smart antennas. The application of the software radio smart antenna is demonstrated through two examples. First, traffic improvement in a network with a smart antenna is considered, and the implementation of a hand-off algorithm in the software radio is presented. The blocking probabilities of the calls and total carried traffic in the system under different traffic policies are derived. The analytical and numerical results show that adaptive beamforming at the receiver reduces the probability of blocking and forced termination of the calls and increases the total carried traffic in the system. Then, a joint beamforming and power control algorithm is implemented in a software radio smart antenna in a CDMA network. This shows that, by using smart antennas, each user can transmit with much lower power, and therefore the system capacity increases significantly     

The Future of Radio Access in 3G

In the last two years, UMTS has progressed from the drawing board to prototypes and pre-release trials. Through the concentrated efforts of manufacturers and operators in the standards bodies, the 3GPP specifications for UMTS, including W-CDMA, TD/CDMA and TD/SCDMA, are currently being developed into deployable equipment for the first UMTS networks. However, human nature dictates that there is always room for improvement, with a constant drive for better performance and higher efficiency. UMTS is by no means the ultimate mobile radio access network, and, even before the first equipment rolls off the production lines, the work of the standards bodies is already looking at enhancements to the system. This paper considers some of these improvements, the evolution of W-CDMA, and the role of TDD in the ongoing developments of third generation mobile radio access.     

Two suboptimal algorithms for downlink beamforming in FDD DS-CDMAmobile radio

Two suboptimal algorithms are proposed for downlink beamforming in FDD DS-CDMA mobile radio by using uplink beamforming weights. One is a null-constrained method, which maintains the same null positions for both uplink and downlink beam patterns; the other is a frequency-calibrated method which constrains the same main beam positions for both patterns. We also evaluate the multicell downlink capacity of DS-CDMA systems using a per-user-per-weight beamforming scheme. Outer cell interference is modeled as an AWGN process whose variance is proportional to the average intracell total transmitted power. Computer simulations are given to compare the single cell and multicell capacities using different downlink beamforming weight generation algorithms     

Implementation of smart antenna API and transceiver API in software communication architecture for a wireless innovation forum standard

This study presents an implementation of the standard smart antenna (SA) application programming interface (API) and Transceiver API developed by the wireless innovation forum??s (WINNF) smart antenna working group (SAWG). The API is implemented using the open-source SCA implementation-embedded (OSSIE) developed at Virginia Tech. Our implementation verified that the SA API can be utilized in software communication architecture (SCA)-based software defined radio (SDR) systems. We also verified that the Transceiver API can be realized with a real radio frequency (RF) transceiver module such as universal software radio peripheral2 (USRP2). The SA API enables various functions of multi-antenna systems such as beamforming and multiple input multiple output (MIMO) of spatial multiplexing. These are core technologies prevalent in 4G mobile communication systems. In order to support multi-antenna structures, the Transceiver API has first been extended for multichannel use. The paper details how the API is extended using OSSIE and the current status of the API as a standard within the Wireless Innovation Forum.