Compensation of Outage in a Cellular Radio Network Using Cell Zooming Technique

Abstract

In the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) long term evolution release 8, it was proposed to have networks that have intelligence to carry out most of the activities on their own. Among these activities include configuration, optimization and self-healing. These networks are called self-organizing networks (SON). This technology has so far been realized mainly in a laboratory situation or on a trial basis. The main reason for the slow development of the technology has been attributed to the complexity of the available algorithms that makes the implementation costly. This research was to identify corrective measures that could be taken to adapt existing mobile network infrastructure so that it exhibits significant level of intelligence that would lower overall downtime in mobile network and thus reap the benefits of SON. The scope of the study was limited to the mobile radio network and it simulated how radio units can be clustered together to share load incase a member of the cluster fails. To demonstrate this, a visual basic algorithm that solved for the compensation parameters was developed using Okumura-Hata propagation model. The Parameters from the algorithm were fed to a simulator (Atoll Planning Software) and the effect analyzed. The algorithm was validated by feeding it with the same parameters as had been used in a previous study and the output matched perfectly. The result of the study identified two region of compensation that can be categorized as densely populated and scarcely populated. The scarcely populated region can primarily rely on the use of cell zooming technique for outage compensation but the densely populated should consider other means as well. Most important, the study revealed that the Azimuth of the antenna should also be adjusted as part of cell zooming.