Unit I Cellular Concepts-shirpur.ppt

Chapter 1The Cellular Concept

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Introduction to Cellular SystemsSolves the problem of spectral congestion and user capacity.Offer very high capacity in a limited spectrum without major technological changes.Reuse of radio channel in different cells.Enable a fix number of channels to serve an arbitrarily large number of users by reusing the channel throughout the coverage region.

Frequency ReuseEach cellular base station is allocated a group of radio channels within a small geographic area called a cell.Neighboring cells are assigned different channel groups.By limiting the coverage area to within the boundary of the cell, the channel groups may be reused to cover different cells.Keep interference levels within tolerable limits.Frequency reuse or frequency planning

seven groups of channel from A to Gfootprint of a cell - actual radio coverageomni-directional antenna v.s. directional antenna

Consider a cellular system which has a total of S duplex channels.Each cell is allocated a group of k channels, .The S channels are divided among N cells.The total number of available radio channels

The N cells which use the complete set of channels is called cluster.The cluster can be repeated M times within the system. The total number of channels, C, is used as a measure of capacity

The capacity is directly proportional to the number of replication M.The cluster size, N, is typically equal to 4, 7, or 12.Small N is desirable to maximize capacity.The frequency reuse factor is given by

Hexagonal geometry has exactly six equidistance neighborsthe lines joining the centers of any cell and each of its neighbors are separated by multiples of 60 degrees.Only certain cluster sizes and cell layout are possible.The number of cells per cluster, N, can only have values which satisfy

Co-channel neighbors of a particular cell, ex, i=3 and j=2.

Channel Assignment Strategies

Frequency reuse schemeincreases capacityminimize interference

Channel assignment strategyfixed channel assignmentdynamic channel assignment

Dynamic channel assignmentchannels are not allocated to cells permanently.allocate channels based on request.reduce the likelihood of blocking, increase capacity.

Fixed channel assignmenteach cell is allocated a predetermined set of voice channelany new call attempt can only be served by the unused channelsthe call will be blocked if all channels in that cell are occupied

Handoff Strategies

When a mobile moves into a different cell while a conversation is in progress, the MSC automatically transfers the call to a new channel belonging to the new base station.

Handoff operationidentifying a new base stationre-allocating the voice and control channels to the new base station.

Handoff ThresholdMinimum usable signal for acceptable voice quality (-90dBm to -100dBm)

Handoff margin cannot be too large or too small.

If is too large, unnecessary handoffs burden the MSC

If is too small, there may be insufficient time to complete handoff before a call is lost.

Handoff must ensure that the drop in the measured signal

is not due to momentary fading and that the mobile is actually moving away from the serving base station.

Running average measurement of signal strength should be

optimized so that unnecessary handoffs are avoided.Depends on the speed at which the vehicle is moving.Steep short term average signal strength -> the hand off should be made quicklyThe speed can be estimated from the statistics of the received short-term fading signal at the base station

Dwell time: the time over which a call may be maintained within a cell without handoff.

Dwell time depends onpropagationinterferencedistancespeed

Handoff measurementIn first generation analog cellular systems, signal strength measurements are made by the base station and supervised by the MSC.In second generation systems (TDMA), handoff decisions are mobile assisted, called mobile assisted handoff (MAHO)

Intersystem handoff: If a mobile moves from one cellular system to a different cellular system controlled by a different MSC.

Handoff requests is much important than handling a new call.

Practical Handoff Consideration

Different type of usersHigh speed users need frequent handoff during a call.Low speed users may never need a handoff during a call.

Microcells are used to provide capacity, the MSC can become burdened if high speed users are constantly being passed between very small cells.

Minimize handoff interventionhandle the simultaneous traffic of high speed and low speed users.

Large and small cells can be located at a single location (umbrella cell) different antenna heightdifferent power level

Cell dragging problem: pedestrian users provide a very strong signal to the base station The user may travel deep within a neighboring cell

Handoff for first generation analog cellular systems10 secs handoff time is in the order of 6 dB to 12 dB

Handoff for second generation cellular systems, e.g., GSM1 to 2 seconds handoff timemobile assists handoff is in the order of 0 dB to 6 dB

Handoff decisions based on signal strength, co-channel interference, and adjacent channel interference.

IS-95 CDMA spread spectrum cellular system

Mobiles share the channel in every cell.No physical change of channel during handoffMSC decides the base station with the best receiving signal as the service station

Prioritizing Handoffs

Guard Channel Concept

A fraction of total available channels in a cell is reserved exclusively for

handoff requests from ongoing calls which may be handed off into the cell.

Disadv: Reduce total carried traffic as fewer channels are allocated to originating calls

Adv: Offer efficient spectrum utilization when dynamic channel assignment strategies are used

Prioritizing Handoffs

Queuing

Used to decrease the probability of forced termination of a call due to lack of available channels

Trade off between the decrease in probability of forced termination and total carried traffic.

It is possible due to the fact that there is a finite time interval between the time the received signal level drops below the handoff threshold and the time the call is terminated due to insufficient signal level.

The delay time and size of the queue is determined from the traffic pattern of the particular service area

Interference and System Capacity

Sources of interferenceanother mobile in the same cella call in progress in the neighboring cellother base stations operating in the same frequency bandnoncellular system leaks energy into the cellular frequency band

Two major cellular interferenceco-channel interferenceadjacent channel interference

Co-channel Interference and System Capacity

Frequency reuse - there are several cells that use the same set of frequencies co-channel cellsco-channel interference

To reduce co-channel interference, co-channel cell must be separated by a minimum distance.

When the size of the cell is approximately the sameco-channel interference is independent of the transmitted powerco-channel interference is a function of R: Radius of the cell D: distance to the center of the nearest co-channel cell

Increasing the ratio Q=D/R, the interference is reduced.Q is called the co-channel reuse ratio

For a hexagonal geometry

A small value of Q provides large capacityA large value of Q improves the transmission quality - smaller level of co-channel interferenceA tradeoff must be made between these two objectives

Let be the number of co-channel interfering cells. The signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) for a mobile receiver can be expressed as

S: the desired signal power : interference power caused by the ith interfering co-channel cell base stationThe average received power at a distance d from the transmitting antenna is approximated by

or

n is the path loss exponent which ranges between 2 and 4. close-in reference point

When the transmission power of each base station is equal, SIR for a mobile can be approximated as

Consider only the first layer of interfering cells

Example: AMPS requires that SIR be greater than 18dBN should be at least 6.49 for n=4.Minimum cluster size is 7

For hexagonal geometry with 7-cell cluster, with the mobile unit being at the cell boundary, the signal-to-interference ratio for the worst case can be approximated as

Adjacent Channel Interference

Adjacent channel interference: interference from adjacent in frequency to the desired signal. Imperfect receiver filters allow nearby frequencies to leak into the passbandPerformance degrade seriously due to near-far effect.

Adjacent channel interference can be minimized through careful filtering and channel assignment.

Keep the frequency separation between each channel in a given cell as large as possible

A channel separation greater than six channel bandwidths is needed to bring the adjacent channel interference to an acceptable level.

Power Control for Reducing Interference

Ensure each mobile transmits the smallest power necessary to maintain a good quality link on the reverse channellong battery lifeincrease SIRsolve the near-far problem

Near-Far Problem: Adjacent channel user is transmitting in a very close range to a subscribers receiver while the receiver attempts to receive a base station on the desired channel.i.e. A nearby transmitter captures the receiver.

Trunking and Grade of Service

Trunking

Allow a large number of users to share the relatively small number of channels in a cell by providing access to each user, on demand, from a pool of available channels.

Each user is allocated a channel on a per call basis, and upon termination of the call, the previously occupied channel is immediately returned to the pool of available channels.

To design trunked radio systems that can handle a specific capacity at a specific grade of service, it is essential to understand trunking theory and queuing theory.


The fundamentals of trunking theory were developed by Erlang, a Danish mathematician Today, the measure of traffic intensity bears his name.

Definitions of Common Terms Used in Trunking Theory

Blocked Call: Call which cannot be completed at time of request, due to congestion. Also referred to as a lost call. Holding Time: Average duration of a typical call denoted by H

Traffic Intensity: Measure of channel time utilization, which is the average channel occupancy measured in Erlangs.


Grade of service: Measure of the ability of a user to access a trunked system during busiest hour GOS is given as the likelihood that a call is blocked or the likelihood of a call experiencing a delay greater than a certain queuing time

Load: Traffic intensity across the entire trunked radio system measured in Erlangs.


Erlangs: One Erlangs represents the amount of traffic density carried by a channel that is completely occupied.Ex: A radio channel that is occupied for 30 minutes during an hour carries 0.5 Erlangs of traffic.

Each user generates a traffic intensity of Erlangs given by

H: average duration of a call. : average number of call requests per unit timeFor a system containing U users and an unspecified number of channels, the total offered traffic intensity A, is given by

For C channel trunking system, the traffic intensity, is given as

Types of Trunked systems

There are two types of trunked systems

Blocked calls cleared

Blocked calls delayed

Types of Trunked systems Blocked calls cleared

M/M/m/m Queue Assumption: We will assume blocked calls cleared trunking with several further assumptions.

Offers no queuing for call requests.

For every user who requests service, it is assumed there is no setup time and the

user is given immediate access to a channel if one is available.

If no channels are available, the requesting user is blocked without access and is

free to try again later.

Call arrive as determined by a Poisson distribution.

There are infinite number of arrivals of call requests, implying that all users, including blocked users, may request a channel at any time.

Erlang B formula determines the probability that a call is blocked and is a measure of the GOS for a trunked system which provides no queuing for blocked calls

The duration of the time that a user occupies a channel is exponentially distributed, so that longer calls are less likely to occur.

Probability that a call is blocked is given by,

k = no of interfering base stations

C = no of trunked channels offered by a trunked radio system

A = total offered traffic

Block calls delayed

Queue is provided to hold calls which are blocked

If a channel is not available immediately, the call request may be delayed until a channel becomes available

Measure of GOS is defined as the probability that a call is blocked after waiting a specific length of time in the queue

To find the GOS, it is necessary to find the likelihood that a call is initially denied access to the system which is given by Erlang C formula

Probability that a blocked call is delayed is given by,

k = no of interfering base stations

C = no of trunked channels offered by a trunked radio system

A = total offered traffic

Improving Capacity in Cellular Systems

Methods for improving capacity in cellular systems

Cell Splitting : subdividing a congested cell into smaller cells.

Sectoring : directional antennas to control the interference and frequency reuse.

Coverage zone : Distributing the coverage of a cell and extends the cell boundary to hard-to-reach place.

Cell Splitting

Split congested cell into smaller cells.Preserve frequency reuse plan.Reduce transmission power.

microcellReduce R to R/2

Transmission power reduction from to Examining the receiving power at the new and old cell boundary

If we take n = 4 and set the received power equal to each other

The transmit power must be reduced by 12 dB in order to fill in the original coverage area.Problem: if only part of the cells are splittedDifferent cell sizes will exist simultaneouslyHandoff issues - high speed and low speed traffic can be simultaneously accommodated

Sectoring

Decrease the co-channel interference and keep the cell radius R unchangedReplacing single omni-directional antenna by several directional antennasRadiating within a specified sector

The factor by which the co-channel interference is reduced depends on the amount of sectoring used. A cell is normally partitioned into three 120 sectors or six 60 sectors as shown inFigure (a) and (b). 120 sectored cell60 sectored cell

Interference Reduction

position of the mobileinterference cells

Microcell Zone Concept

Antennas are placed at the outer edges of the cellAny channel may be assigned to any zone by the base stationMobile is served by the zone with the strongest signal.

Handoff within a cellNo channel re-assignmentSwitch the channel to a different zone siteReduce interferenceLow power transmitters are employed

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Unit I Cellular Concepts-shirpur.ppt

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