Fundamentals of Cellular

Engineering

Prepared By :
Pratik R. Detroja
 Outline

 Introduction to cellular system

 Concept of frequency reuse
 Channel Assignment Strategies
 Handoff Process and Generation
 Handoff Priority
 Enhancing Capacity And Cell Coverage : The key Trade-off
 Cell Splitting
 Sectoring
 Microcell Zone Concept
 Reference
 Introduction
 Goals of a Cellular System :
• High capacity
• Large coverage area
• Efficient use of limited spectrum

 Reuse of radio channel

 Enable a fix number of channels to serve an

arbitrarily large number of users by reusing
the channel throughout the coverage region
 What is cell ?
 Each 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.
 Frequency reuse
 Consider a cellular system which has a total of S duplex channels.
 Each cell is allocated a group of k channels, K < S
 The S channels are divided among N cells.
 The total number of available radio channels, S = kN
 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.
C = MkN = MS
 The capacity is directly proportional to the number of replication M.
 The cluster size, N, is typically equal to 4, 7, or 12.
 The frequency reuse factor is given by 1/N.
 Frequency reuse (Cont.)
 Hexagonal geometry has
• exactly six equidistance neighbors
• the 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
N  i 2  ij  j 2
 Channel Assignment Strategies

 Goal is to minimize interference & maximize use of capacity.

 One of the Channel assignment strategies is

1. Fixed Channel Assignment :
 Channels are divided in sets.

 A set of channels is permanently allocated to each cell in the

network. Same set of channels must be assigned to cells
separated by a certain distance to reduce co-channel
interference.

 Any call attempt within the cell can only be served by the
unused channels in that particular cell. The service is blocked
if all channels have used up
 FCA(cont.)
 Most easiest to implement but least flexibility.

 An modification to this is ‘borrowing scheme’. Cell (acceptor cell) tha

has used all its nominal channels can borrow free channels from its
neighboring cell (donor cell) to accommodate new calls.

 Borrowing can be done in a few ways: borrowing from the adjacent cell
which has largest number of free channels, select the first free
channel found, etc.

 To be available for borrowing, the channel must not interfere with

existing calls. The borrowed channel should be returned once the
channel becomes free.
2. Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA) :

 Voice channels are not allocated to any cell permanently. All channels
are kept in a central pool and are assigned dynamically to new calls as
they arrive in the system.

 Each time a call request is made, the serving BS requests a channel

from the MSC. It then allocates a channel to the requested cell
following an algorithm that takes into acount the likelihood of future
blocking within the cell, the reuse distance of the channel and other
cost functions ⇒ increase in complexity
 DCA(cont.)

 Centralized DCA scheme involves a single controller selecting a

channel for each cell. Distributed DCA scheme involves a number of
controllers scattered across the network.

 For a new call, a free channel from central pool is selected based
on either the co-channel distance, signal strength or signal to noise
interference ratio.
 What is Handoff ?

 Handoff :
when a mobile unit moves from one cell to another while a call is in
progress, the MSC must transfer (handoff) the call to a new
channel belonging to a new base station
 very important task → often given higher priority than new call
 It is worse to drop an in-progress call than to deny a new one

 Handoff operation :
• identifying a new base station
• re-allocating the voice and control channels with the new base
station.
Handoff
 Handoff Process

 Handoff Threshold
 Minimum usable signal for acceptable voice quality (-90dBm to -
100dBm)
 Handoff margin   Pr ,handoff  Pr ,minimum usable 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 Process (cont.)
 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 -> the hand off should be made quickly
• The 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.
 Handoff Generation
 Handoff measurement

 1st Generation Cellular (Analog FM → AMPS)

• Received signal strength (RSS) of RVC measured at base station &
monitored by MSC
• A spare Rx in base station (locator Rx) monitors RSS of RVC's in neighboring
cells
 Tells Mobile Switching Center about these mobiles and their channels

• Locator Rx can see if signal to this base station is significantly better than
to the host base station
• MSC monitors RSS from all base stations & decides on handoff
• 10 secs handoff time
 Handoff Generation (Cont.)
 2nd Generation Cellular w/ digital TDMA (GSM, IS-136)
• Mobile Assisted HandOffs (MAHO)
• important advancement
• The mobile measures the RSS of the FCC’s from adjacent base stations &
reports back to serving base station
• if Rx power from new base station > Rx power from serving (current) base
station by pre-determined margin for a long enough time period → handoff
initiated by MSC
• 1 to 2 seconds handoff time

 IS-95 CDMA spread spectrum cellular system

• Mobiles share the channel in every cell.
• No physical change of channel during handoff
• MSC decides the base station with the best receiving signal as the service
station
 Handoff Priority
 Dropped call is considered a more serious event than call blocking.
Channel assignment schemes therefore must give priority to
handover requests.
 A fraction of the total available channels in a cell is reserved only
for handover requests. However, this reduces the total carried
traffic. Dynamic allocation can improve this.
 It reduces rate of handoff failure
 It is desirable from user’s point of view

 Prioritizing Handoff
1. Guard channels concept
2. Queuing handoff requests
Wireless Cellular System Traffic
in a cell
Common
Channel Pool
New Calls
Call completion

Handoff Calls Handoff out

From To neighboring
neighboring cells A Cell cells
 Guard Channel Method

A fraction of available channels is reserved exclusively for

handoff requests
It has disadvantage of reducing total carried traffic

It Offers efficient spectrum utilization when dynamic channel

assignment strategies by minimizing number of required guard
channels

It reduces number of blocked handoffs

It reduces system capacity
 Guard Channel Scheme
Handoff dropping less desirable than new call blocking!

Handoff call has Higher Priority: Guard Channel Scheme

GCS: g channels are reserved for handoff calls.

g trade-off between Pb & Pd

Here, New call blocking probability, Pb

Handoff call dropping probability, Pd
 Guard Channel Scheme (Cont.)
 When a new call (NC) is attempted in an cell covered by a base station
(BS), the NC is connected if an idle channel is available in the cell.
Otherwise, the call is blocked

 If an idle channel exists in the target cell, the handoff call (HC)
continues nearly transparently to the user. Otherwise, the HC is
dropped

 Loss Formulas
 New call blocking probability, Pb : Percentage of new calls rejected
 Handoff call dropping probability, Pd : Percentage of calls forcefully
terminated while crossing cells
 Queuing Handoff Requests

 First, Put handoff requests in a queue

 Then Serves handoffs on a FCFS basis
 It reduces number of failed handoffs
 It reduces system capacity
 Queuing Handoff Requests (Cont.)

 Possible due to time interval elapsed when the signal level drops
below to threshold until minimum signal level
 Decrease probability of forced termination due to lack of
available channels
 Tradeoff between decrease in probability of forced termination
and total traffic
 The delay time and queue size is determined from traffic pattern
 Queuing does not guarantee zero probability of call termination
since large delays will signal level to drop min
 Enhancing Capacity And Cell
Coverage Throughput
/cell
 The Trade-off : (Mbps) 802.11b
A-MAS
Benefit
Technical Interpretation
 Gain vs. noise, fading, ... expands envelope to
right
 Interference mitigation (+ gain) expands it
upwards
range
Interference Noise (km)
Limited Limited
Economic Interpretation
 Coverage improvements reduce CapEx, OpEx (esp. backhaul, sites)
 Capacity improvements reduce delivery cost, spectrum requirements
 Trade-off
 The number of channels available to customers (equivalently,
the channel density per square kilometer) could be increased
by decreasing the cluster size.
 It might be that an increase in channel density is required only
in specific parts of the system to support an increased demand
in those areas.
 Cell-splitting is a technique which has the capability to add new
smaller cells in specific areas of the system.
 Sectoring is basically a technique which can increase the SIR
without necessitating an increase in the cluster size.
 Microcell zone
Introduction

 Why cell shape is hexagonal…?

 Cont…

 Why Cell Splitting , Sectoring and Microcell zone…..?

 As users increases per cell the channel capacity
decreases
 Techniques needed to provide extra channel
 Cell Splitting, Sectoring and Microcell zone increases the
capacity
Cell Splitting

 In base stations where usage of cellular network is

high, these cell split into smaller cell
 Cont..

 A new cell site must be constructed when the cell is

split
 Each with its own base station and a corresponding
reduction in antenna height
 Such that the radio frequencies are reassigned, and
transmission power is reduced
 The process of subdividing a congested cell into
smaller cell leads to increase in capacity
 Cell splitting is one of the easy and less costly solution
when increasing the capacity of cellular network
Cell Sectoring

 Sectorization consist of dividing an omnidirectional

(360 degree)view of cell site into non overlapping
slices called sectoring
 To overcome some limitations like co-channel
interference, cell sectoring is done
 There are 2 methods for cell sectoring
 1) 60 degree
 2) 120 degree
 Cont…
 Replacing a single omnidirectional antenna at base
station with several directional antenna achieves
capacity improvement by essentially rescaling the
system

 Advantages
 It reduces interference which increases capacity
 It enables to reduce the cluster size and provides an
additional freedom in assigning channels
 Limitations
 Increased number of antennas at each base station
 Loss of traffic
 Since sectoring reduces the coverage area of a
particular group of channels, the number of handoffs
increases as well
Microcell

 As the splitting of cell idea evolves, the usage of

smaller cell becomes efficient and it leads the
creation of microcell

 The aim of creating a microcell are increasing the

capacity of cellular networks in areas where
population is very high
Microcell Zone Concept

 By the use of sectorization technique, we can increase

the system performance but there will be a large
increment of handoffs which results in the increment of
load on the switching and control link elements of the
mobile system

 So a Microcell Zone Concept is introduced which

leads to an increased capacity without any
degradation in trunking efficiency caused by
sectoring

 Large control base system is replaced by several lower

powered transmitters on the edge of the cell
 Cont…
 The mobile retains in the same channel and the base
station simply switches to a different zone site and the
mobile moves from zone to zone
 A channel is active only in a particular zone in which
mobile is travelling , base station radiation is localized
and interference is reduced
 Reference
 Ray, S; Pawlikowski, K; Sirisena, H; , ”Handover in Mobile WiMAX
Networks: The State of Art and Research Issues,” IEEE Commun.
Surveys & Tutorials , vol.PP, no.99, pp.1-24, 2010
 Channel assignment strategies; Srilasak , Wongthavarawat,
Limmongkol; wireless Innovation & security Lab., Nat. Electron,.&
Comput. Technol. Center, Pathymthani, Thailand..
 Adaptive cell sectoring using fixed overlapping sectors in CDMA
networks; alagan S. Anpalagan elvino S. Sousa; Department of
electrical and computer engineering; University of toronto.
 Evolved universal terrestrial radio access (E-UTRA), physical
channelsand modulation.3GPP TR 36.211, V.8.5.0, 2008.