Capacity estimation algorithm for simultaneous support of multi-class traffic services in Mobile WiMAX

Mobile profile of WiMAX technology, based on IEEE 802.16e standard, is due to support multi-application services, while benefiting a wide range of implementation flexibilities. The current document presents a simple capacity estimation methodology for WiMAX systems. In this paper, the term capacity concerns with the maximum number of simultaneous multi-service users that each specific Mobile WiMAX access point can jointly support. A dynamic PHY+MAC overhead removal method is formulated to achieve an improved system goodput with respect to users distribution and multi-burst construction strategy. A service delivery model is presented that investigates the QoS requirements of the services to be supported, along with elaborating an application profile as a consistent input for capacitating and dimensioning studies. The minimum resource consumption calculation for the joint-application users is derived at each given time. An incremental algorithm compares the optimal available resources with minimum service demand for each number of users to arrive at maximum system capacity. Using the proposed algorithm, different simulation scenarios are studied based on the most used WiMAX implementation parameters in practice. The simulation results prove the significant roll of overhead calculation in performance evaluation studies. Furthermore, these results can be used for network planning and dimensioning purposes, as well as providing reference measures for scheduling performance analysis and detailed simulations.