The 18th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC07)

HANDOVER PARAMETER OPTIMIZATION IN WCDMA USING FUZZY

CONTROLLING
Christina Werner*, Jens Voigt*, Shahid Khattak**, and Gerhard Fettweis**
*Actix GmbH
**Dresden University of Technology
Altmarkt 10, D-01067 Dresden, Germany
D-01062 Dresden, Germany
{christina.werner;jens.voigt}@actix.com
A BSTRACT
The increasing traffic and the demand for high data rate services in WCDMA networks prompt the need for an automatic
network optimization. Current stateoftheart optimization methods adapt physical parameters, such as the antennas tilt or azimuth. As agreed in the community, a further capacity increase
can be achieved by an optimization of Radio Resource Management (RRM) parameters. While theoretical approaches of RRM
parameter optimization have already been introduced in the literature, practical solutions optimizing cell individual parameters
have rarely been treated so far. Consequently, this paper copes
with the optimization of the cell individual offset (CIO) in the soft
handover algorithm with the goal to reduce the networks outage
probabiliy. We design and apply a fuzzy logic controller, whose
output are CIO changes matching the current traffic and load
conditions. Verifications using a dynamic system simulator prove
the powerfulness of our method and promise significant outage
reductions in a fully loaded network scenario leading to capacity
improvements of up to 9%.

Keywords WCDMA; Radio Resource Management; Soft

Handover Control; Fuzzy Controlling; Simulation and Performance Evaluation; Automatic Parameter Optimization
I.

I NTRODUCTION

The increasing traffic and the demand for high data rate services in WCDMA, as well as the network size and complexity,
prompt the need for automatic optimization, whose aim is to
save capital and operational expenditures. Current stateof
theart optimization methods adapt physical parameters, such
as the antennas tilt or azimuth and, possibly, the transmit
power of the common channels [1].
As agreed in the community, a further capacity increase can
be achieved by optimization of parameters of the radio resource
management (RRM) algorithms, whose task is to dynamically
allocate, maintain, and release the available hard (e.g. channelization codes) and soft (e.g. power) resources. As the default,
the RRM parameters have fixed or even standard values given
by the vendor, which can not match the current traffic, interference, and propagation conditions in a cell.
In the start phase of WCDMA, an optimal setting of RRM
parameters was not of a great importance, since the traffic in the
third generation network was comparatively low. However, the
traffic increase and the demand for high data rate services in a
network with suboptimal configurations currently leads to an
increase in the blocking and dropping probabilities, whose sum
is also called the outage probability. To prevent a reduction of
c
1-4244-1144-0/07/$25.00 2007
IEEE

the user satisfaction and the operator revenue, and to increase

the network capacity, a local optimization of the RRM parameters is inevitable and currently strongly demanded by network
operators.
Recent research on optimization of RRM parameters, such
as admission and congestion thresholds, or soft handover reporting range and hysteresis has shown that an adjustment of
the RRM parameters improves the system capacity in comparison to a network, whose RRM values are fixed, e.g. [2], [3], and
[4]. Nevertheless, although already motivating cell individual
parameter optimizations [4], these publications deal with RRM
parameters, whose values can only be configured at the Radio
Network Controller (RNC) and are not parameterizable at a cell
individual level.
Instead, we consequently optimize RRM parameters per cell
depending on the temporary and local cell specifics. In order
to show that an automated adjustment can improve the network capacity, the RRM parameter cell individual offset (CIO),
which influences the soft handover (SHO) overhead in a cell,
was chosen to be optimized in this paper. As the name already
implicates, the value of this RRM parameter is cellspecific
and the choice of its value can consider the cell characteristics.
In particular, the CIO will be optimized with the goal to reduce
the SHO overhead and further the outage probability in case of
an overloaded network.
As an optimization strategy, fuzzy logic controlling (FLC)
is applied. FLC for the tuning of SHO parameters in CDMA
networks (IS-95) was first introduced in [5]. A fuzzy logic concept for the dynamic tuning of admission thresholds and RNC
specific SHO parameters has been suggested in e.g. [3] and [4].
The authors showed that FLC is a suitable method for the RRM
parameter tuning.
This paper is organized as follows: Section II. provides the
reasons for the choice of the CIO, which is the parameter the
optimization in this work focuses on. In Section III. the fuzzy
logic controller for the CIO is designed. In Section IV. the
verification tool and setup are introduced. The results of our
investigations are shown in Section V.. Finally, Section VI.
gives our conclusions.
II.

C ELL I NDIVIDUAL O FFSET C ONSIDERATION AND

O PTIMIZATION TARGET

Since the Mobile Stations (MS) in WCDMA are separated by

codes and share the same frequency, a MS has the possibility
to be connected to more than one cell simultaneously. This
state is termed soft handover (SHO). The cells to which a MS
is connected during SHO is denoted as the active set.

The 18th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC07)

SHO has the following advantages:

SHO ensures the seamless cell change and increases the
network coverage on the uplink link direction (UL).
The SHO combining gain mitigates propagation effects,
such as fast fading and shadowing.
The SHO combining gain might lead to a transmit power
reduction, which reduces the interference in the network
on the UL.
On the other hand, SHO also has some disadvantages:
At each cell extra codes, hardware, and downlink (DL)
power have to be allocated for the additional SHO links.
This leads to a higher outage probability and a decrease in
the network capacity.
Especially the DL power is a very scarce resource, since
it is shared by all MS in the cell. The trend for services
with asymmetrical data rates and HighSpeed Downlink
Packet Access (HSDPA) intensifies the DL cell power deficiency.
SHO links cause additional DL interference for the remaining MS.
The CIO is a cellspecific RRM parameter, whose value
modifies the cells pilot measurements and thus, influences the
time and the place of SHO establishment with the particular
cell, see e.g. [6] or [7], 14.1. A change of the CIO value has
the following influence on the network performance:
Effects of a higher CIO: More MS add the cell to or keep
it in their active set. Thus, a higher value of the CIO leads
to a SHO overhead increase in the cell, stressing both, SHO
advantages and disadvantages. An optimizer could preferably
rise the CIO at rather low DL load values.
Effects of a lower CIO: Less MS add the cell to their active set
and at the same time more MS remove it from the active set.
Thus, a lower value leads to a SHO overhead decrease, easing
both, SHO advantages and disadvantages. An optimizer could
preferably lower the CIO at high DL load values.
Thus, carefully adjusted CIOs can help to adapt the SHO
overhead to the current load situation in a cell. This process
will result in lower outage probabilities in case of overload
situations in the network, which is the optimization aim in this
work.
Fuzzy logic controlling (FLC) was chosen as a load
dependent optimization method for the CIO. The following
section presents the designed and implemented fuzzy logic
controller.
III.

F UZZY C ONTROLLER FOR THE C ELL I NDIVIDUAL

O FFSET

Fuzzy controlling is based on the principles of fuzzy logic,

which maps, by the means of membership functions, linguistic
terms, such as very, high, low, etc. not only to the values
0 and 1, but to the whole interval [0, 1].
FLC offers a simple software implementation. It is based on
ifthen rules, which express the relationship between the input
and the output variables. The rules are derived from statements

that are formulated in natural language. FLC can be used for

linear and nonlinear control, but is especially suitable for non
analytical solvable nonlinear problems. See e.g. [5] for a more
comprehensive introduction of FLC.
FLC design is based on expert knowledge and analysis. The
lack of specific design criteria is the most important disadvantage of FLC. Therefore, a strong expert background and a thorough analysis of the system behavior is a prerequisite for the
design of a good fuzzy controller.
A.

FLC Architecture

A fuzzy logic controller contains a fuzzification module, an

inference engine with a rule base, and a defuzzification module.
The FLC structure is shown in Figure 1.
Rule Base

Input

Inference
Engine

Fuzzification

Defuzzification

Output

Figure 1: Structure of a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC)

Based on the conducted analysis of the CIO modifications
and on the FLC theory, a fuzzy logic controller for the CIO was
designed. The construction steps include the choice of the input
parameters, the linguistic regions as well as the corresponding
membership functions, the rule base, the type of inference, and
the defuzzification method and are described next.
B.

Choice of the Input Parameters and Fuzzification

An FLC with two input parameters was considered in the first

investigation stages to ensure low complexity and implementation effort. Among the large number of possible input parameters (i.e. DL load, SHO overhead, blocking and dropping rates,
lack of coverage, mean active set size, ... ), the DL load and the
SHO overhead were chosen because the aim of the controlling
process is to reduce the SHO overhead in a cell if the measured
DL load is high.
1)

DL Load

The DL load is measured as the ratio between the averaged total

DL transmit power P t, total, DL and the cells maximum output
power Pt, total, DL, max :
MDL =

P t, total, DL
Pt, total, DL, max

(1)

The averaged total DL transmit power includes the power of

the common and dedicated channels.
2)

SHO Overhead

The second input parameter, the SHO overhead, is calculated

as the ratio of the MS that contain the cell in their active set
(this cell is not the best cell) (NDCH NBest ) and the total
count of MS on a dedicated channel in the cell (NDCH ):
MSHO = 1

NBest
NDCH

(2)

The 18th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC07)

The fuzzification step converts the real input values into

fuzzy sets. The membership degree of the measured input values to the considered properties is determined by means of
the corresponding membership functions and is in the interval [0, 1]. In this paper triangular symmetric membership functions are used (compare [8]).
The properties, which are also called linguistic regions, describe the measured values of the input parameters. One membership function is associated with one linguistic region. Both
input parameters in the present work are described by three linguistic regions low, medium, and high.

The output membership degrees for each linguistic region of

the output parameter are then used as an input for the defuzzification step.

C.

In the present work, the network performance with optimized CIO values by the FLC is investigated first with the aim
to identify further input parameters which should be considered
by the FLC. Therefore, single services are investigated first.
Based on the obtained results, the FLC will be extended and applied then in various multipleservices scenarios. Finally, the
FLC will be used for optimization in a real network scenario.
The investigation tool and the obtained results are discussed
next.

Inference Engine and Rule Base

In the second step, the inference engine applies the rules in

the rule base and outputs a fuzzy value. The rules in the rule
base are designed using the experience and knowledge of the
constructor of the FLC. Their number depends on the number
of the input variables and on the number of the distinguished
linguistic regions per input variable.
1)

Rule Base

Due to the fact that three linguistic regions per input parameter have been defined and two input parameters are used, the
resulting rule base is twodimensional and contains nine rules.
The rule base is shown in the form of a matrix in Figure 2. It is
based on ideas presented in [8].
MDL

Low

Medium

High

Low

High

Medium

Low

Medium

High

Medium

Low

High

Medium

Low

Low

MSHO

Figure 2: Rule Base for the CIO FLC

It should be read as follows:
The CIO is reduced at high DL loads or when a high portion
of MS in the cell is in SHO in order to release resources and to
reduce the outage probabilities.
When the DL load is low and the portion of MS in SHO is
not high, then the CIO can be increased to use the combining
gain and improve the quality and coverage.
2)

D.

Defuzzification

In the following defuzzification step, the fuzzy output values

are converted into real numbers. The defuzzification method
used in this work is the WeightofAverageFormula [8]. The
advantage of this defuzzification method in comparison to
other frequently used defuzzification methods is that it considers all output linguistic regions.

IV.

E XPERIMENTAL S ETUP

The investigations were carried out using a dynamic system

level simulator, which allows a detailed timedependent analysis of the network performance considering multiuser and
multiservice scenarios [9].
In the first investigation stage, an ideal hexagonal cell environment area was used. The simulation area includes 19
Node Bs (=
b 57 cells) and its total area is equal to 21 km2 . In
order to exclude border effects from the simulation results, we
only evaluated the results of the inner circle of cells. Its area
is 7 km2 and it contains 7 Node Bs (=
b 21 cells). The distance
between the Node Bs is equal to 1 km.
The examined services possess a homogeneous traffic distribution. In this work only circuitswitched services are considered. The reason for this choice is that the Dedicated Channels (DCH), which are subject to SHO, are definitely required
by the circuitswitched services.
The main investigation parameters are shown in Table 1. Depending on the service and mobility profiles it can be distinguished between four MS profiles: SL (Speech, Low Speed),
SH (Speech, High Speed), VL (Video, Low Speed), and VH
(Video, High Speed).
All performed investigations lasted 5 minutes real time (=
b
30,000 UMTS frames).

MinMax Inference

The FLC for the CIO uses minmax inference, which contains
two steps aggregation and composition.
In the aggregation step, the minimum of the membership degrees of the two input values is determined for each rule.
In the composition step, a membership degree for each linguistic region of the output parameter is calculated using the rule
base and the values determined in the aggregation step. For
the determination of the output membership degrees, the maximum function considers only the rules for which the linguistic
region is contained in the rule output.

V.
A.

R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION

Single Services Analysis

1)

Performance Improvement

The FLC presented in Section III. was applied in two operating

modes:
Offline Mode: In the offline mode, the necessary input parameters for the FLC were extracted as average output results from a
first simulation run applying standard values for the CIO in all
cells. Then the FLC was used to determine average optimized

The 18th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC07)

Table 1: Main Investigation Parameters

Parameter

Value

Pt, total, DL, max

Fast Fading Type
Shadowing Std. Dev.
Low Speed
High Speed
Speech Rate
Video Rate
SHO Add/Drop Window
SHO Time to Trigger

43 dBm
COST 207 Typical Urban
6 dB
1 m/s (average/normal distr.)
16 m/s (maximum/uniform distr.)
12.2 kbit/s
64 kbit/s
3/5 dB
640 ms

values for the CIO. These CIO settings were then applied in a
second simulation run as constant values over the entire simulation run time.
This operating mode emulates the real application scenario
within network operators: Instead of getting input parameters
out of a first simulation run, the network operator can use average networks counters e.g. for the busy hour to feed them
into the FLC in order to get better CIO values for that specific
network setup and load.
Online Mode: In the online mode, the necessary input parameters for the FLC were extracted within a simulation run and
given to the FLC. The output of the FLC, improved CIO values, were simultaneoulsy applied within the same simulation
run.
This operating mode emulates online optimization of a
network, e.g. with the operating subsystem (OSS).
The investigations started with a highly overloaded network
setup having outage probabilities around 10% for the different
service profiles. The outage probability is hereby measured as
the relative number of MS, which could not be served due to
missing coverage, blocking, or dropping. The outage probabilities for the three investigated cases without FLC, in online
mode, in offline mode is shown in Figure 3.
25%

20.7

3.

8
4. 8%
74
%

SH

2.

SL

66
3. %
55
%

7.

3.

41
%
4.
69
%

9.

42
%

91
%

8%
11
.5
08
2. %
27
%

5%

2.

Outage

10%

2)

Adjustment of the FLC for the CIO

The evaluation of the single services investigations showed that

different CIO values are optimal for different MS service profiles and speeds. The mean CIO values, which lead to a local
minimum of outage probabilities for different service profiles,
are presented in Table 2.
Table 2: Average CIO values, which lead to the lowest outage
MS Profile CIO (dB)
SL
2.18
1.10
SH
VL
2.41
1.05
VH
Based on the obtained results, we suggest adding two additional binary input parameters to the FLC the average speed
and data rate of the MS in a cell. The improved FLC (with two
further input parameters) was then applied in a situation with
multiple services.
B.

Multiple Services Analysis

The improved FLC was used to optimize the CIO value in three
different multiple services scenarios:
1. prevailing MS with low velocity and low data rate,
2. prevailing MS with high velocity and low data rate, and
3. high portion of MS with low velocity and high data rate.
The share of each MS profile is shown in Table 3. The results
lead to the conclusion that it is advisable to set the CIO value
for the prevailing type of service in the cell to achieve the lowest outage.

1%

20%
15%

yielded an average outage decrease of 63 %. Thus, the replacement of the timedependent CIO calculated by the FLC with its
average leads to a slight increase of the outage. In the following
sections, only offline optimization is considered.
The outage improvement is greater for the service profiles
SL and VL. The reason for this is the low velocity of these
profiles, which allows for a further CIO reduction.

Table 3: Multiple services composition

SL
SH
VL
M-SL 60 % 20 % 20 %
M-SH 20 % 60 % 20 %

40 %
M-VL 60 %

0%
VL

VH

UE Profile
without Fuzzy

Fuzzy-Online

Fuzzy-Offline

Figure 3: Outage Reduction with Online and Offline FLC Optimization

By applying the FLC for the CIO, the outage probability
could for all service types be reduced to under 5 %, which is
an acceptable value from the view of most network operators.
The achieved outage decrease (online) is between 54 % (SH)
and 87 % (VL), on average 71 %. FLC offline optimization

The network capacity, in terms of traffic, where the outage

probability was almost the same with and without the FLC, was
now examined.
The capacity gain is shown in Figure 4. The application of
the FLC leads to an increase of the MS count, which can be
added to the network without an increase of the outage probability of less than 5%. For the multiple services scenario MVL, the relative capacity gain is lower because the user count,
irrespective of the MS profile type and data rate, is considered
here. On average over all MS profiles, a user gain of about 9%
could be observed.

The 18th Annual IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC07)
116.02%

120%

108.48%

104.86%

User Gain

100%
80%
60%

the DL cell load,

40%

the SHO overhead,

20%

the data rate of the dominant user type in the cell, and

0%
M-SL

M-SH
without Fuzzy

M-VL
Fuzzy-Offline

Figure 4: User Gain at an Outage Probability less than 5 %

with FLC Offline Optimization (multiple services)
C.

The design of the FLC requires a thorough prior analysis of

the parameters impact on the network performance.
In particular, we optimized the RRM parameter CIO of the
SHO algorithm with an FLC. As input to the controller we suggest to use the following averaged busy hour network counter
directly or as derived values:

Real Network

Finally we investigated the powerfulness of our algorithm in a

real network environment that was a part of a major European
city center. The simulation area covered 69 km2 and the analysis area 15 km2 . The simulation area contained 43 Node Bs
(=
b 129 cells) and the analysis area included 14 Node Bs (=
b 42
cells).
The available clutter, elevation, and traffic data were used
to ensure a precise modeling of the environment and propagation conditions in the real network. Furthermore, the antennas
azimuth and tilt had already been optimized. The multiple services composition contained mostly the SL service profile.
The investigations were again started with an overloaded situation. The performed offline CIO optimization by the FLC
reduced the outage from 7.5 % to 4.8 %, which corresponds to
an improvement of 36 %.
The lower CIO values did not sacrifice the connection quality. Not only the target block error rate of 1 % was maintained,
but even the Ec /I0 was inreased by 3 %.
The number of control information units such as MS measurement reporting events 1A, 1B, and 1C (see [7]) could also
be reduced due to the optimized CIO values, further reducing
the network load.
To summarize, the investigations of the real network proved
that the optimization with the FLC, as described in this work,
improves the network performance and reduces the outage
probability.
VI.

C ONCLUSIONS

Our results imply that in the case of an overload situation the

default CIO value (0 dB) leads to an unnecessary SHO overhead, which consumes DL power that could be granted to new
users requests.
Thus, the user satisfaction and the operator revenue can be
increased by the choice of cellindividual values of selected
RRM parameters. A suitable automated optimization solution
is the application of an FLC, which optimizes the RRM parameter values depending on the cells characteristics.

the speed of the dominant user type in the cell.

In addition to a tremendous reduction of the outage probability in a fully loaded network scenario, the application of
the developed FLC promises to lead on average to up to a 9 %
increase of the real multiple services network capacity in comparison to a network with standard CIO values. A simultaneous
online optimization of the CIO within the operating network
could even outperform the investigated offline busyhour optimization.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to thank our colleagues at Actix GmbH and
at the Vodafone Chair for Mobile Communications Systems
at Dresden University of Technology for their support and reviews.
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