Enhanced Neighbor Relation Building Algorithm

for WCDMA and LTE Networks

Ragil Wicaksono, Kwangrok Chang, William Chan, Yoshinori Nagahara and Seiji Kunishige
MOTiV Research Co., Ltd.
Tokyo, Japan

Abstract This paper provides an enhanced algorithm to dont even have any overlapping for the given x dBm
design the neighbor cell list (NCL) in WCDMA and E-UTRAN. threshold.
NCL design has been conventionally performed based on RF
coverage data obtained from off-line coverage simulations tool, Cell_A1
RSCP = x dBm threshold
which requires expensive arrangement of tools and information Cell_A3 Antenna Azimuth
to run. As a result, automatic and continual update of neighbor
relation in the mobile network using SON (Self Optimization
Network) takes high cost and complexity. The new algorithm
proposed in this paper can build the reliable neighbor relations
with must less efforts and information requirements like Cell_A2
coverage simulation. The reliability of the algorithm was also
verified using actual application to a live network. Cell_B1

Keywords- neighbor relation; WCDMA; LTE; Handover; SON

I. INTRODUCTION
The UMTS mobile network has handover mobility feature
as its cardinal aspect to maintain UEs seamless radio link
retainability when the neighbor relations have been built
optimally with highly reliable neighboring algorithms [1], [2],
[3]. Constructing the neighbor relations is carried out based on
the cells coverage footprints, which are obtained from RF
coverage simulations taken over good deal of processing time.
As UMTS evolves into LTE network where SON (Self
Optimization Network) can define the necessary neighbor
relations for each source cell [4] however, if its neighboring
algorithm leans on traditional coverage simulation deeply, it
will result in heavy processing burden at eNB or a system
entity in charge of the neighbor design and maintenance. In
Cell_C1
Figure 1. Concept of NR ranking for NCL planning
For every pair of the source cell and the candidate target
cell, there shall be a point where the tangent contour having
mutually same received signal strength from the source cell
and the candidate target cell. The received signal strength at R
represents its rank. If it is expressed the cells transmitted pilot
or reference signals strength and the transmitted direction as a
vector, the vector projection of each cell can be plotted as in
Figure 2.
R3
R2

this paper, an enhanced neighboring design algorithm is

proposed, which is appropriate to use in SON system with fast R1

implementation speed and reliability.

II. NCL PLANNING ALGORITHM
The concept of NCL (Neighbor Cell List) planning in this
paper is to calculate the received signal strength of the source
cells transmitted power at the candidate target cells antenna
and a priority rank is given to the neighbor relation between
the source cell and the candidate target cell in terms of the
signal strength (e.g. RSCP or RSRP). Then those neighbor
relations with relatively higher rank values are chosen as the
NCL. For example, there are a source cell, Cell_C1 and
candidate target cells, Cell_A1~Cell_A3 and Cell_B1 as
shown in Figure 1 and the neighbor relations is to be
configured between the source cell, Cell_C1 and other cells.
The areas highlighted in black between Cell_C1 and the
candidate target cells represent the coverage overlapping area
where both source cell and the candidate target cell provide
better signal strength than the x dBm threshold. The bigger
the overlapping area is, the higher NR (Neighbor Relation)
rank of the source cell and the candidate target cell is. In this
example, the pair of Cell_C1 and Cell_B1 is the highest NR
rank but Cell_C1 and Cell_A1 has the lowest NR rank as they
RSCP = w dBm threshold
RSCP = x dBm threshold Direct Line Between Node-B
RSCP = y dBm threshold
,where w < x < y .
Middle Point Between Node-B
Direct Line Between Node-B
Figure 2. Vector projection of source and target cells signals
The vector magnitude becomes a function of CPICH
power or reference signal (RS) power, antenna gain and
antenna height. The direction of the vector depends on the
antennas azimuth angle and HPBW. The natural
characteristic of vector makes it possible to separate the vector
into the in-phase component and the out-of-phase component.
The in-phase component is the vector component lies along
the direct line between the source cell and the candidate target
cell. The out-of-phase component is the vector component due
to the angular deviations of the main beam of the source cell
and the candidate target cell from the in-phase axis.
 (5)
x1,y1 Angle Projection (dB)
Projection Angle (degree)
; (6)

Penalty [dB]
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180
-10
-20

x1,y1 x2,y2
-30
-40
( ) ( )
-50

x2,y2
Direct Line Between Node-B
Middle Point Between Node-B
( ) (7)

In-phase component Out-of-phase component In-phase component Out-of-phase component In order to simplify the equation above, the components of
:30 ,
the equation are defined as follow:
( ) (8)

Figure 3. In-phase component and out-of-phase component of the vector (9)

projection
(10)
The contribution of each component into the overall
RSCP (or RSRP) at R can be quantitated. The calculation of The equation can be re-written as:
the in-phase components magnitude becomes relatively (11)
simple by converting the in-phase component problem into
an one dimensional RSCP calculation problem where both This equation is not closed form expression however, in
source cell and the candidate target cell are facing to each practical scenarios, the cell radius is usually less than 3km so
other directly as shown in Figure 4. However the EIRP of that in the range, , Mercator series can be
each cell must account for the antennas horizontal patterns applied: where )
with angles , deviated from the in-phase axis and the st
CPICH (or RS) transmit power. Okumura-Hata model is used to simplify the equation. Figure 5 shows that even the 1
to calculate the RSCP/RSRP values at R, where the RSCP1 series component, gives reasonably acceptable
from the source cell, Cell_A is same as the RSCP2 from the approximation and if multiplying a constant coefficient, 0.25
candidate target cell, Cell_B based on the equivalent contour to the 1st series component, the approximated result becomes
concept. very close the original when .

Cell_A Cell_B ; (12)

Simple 1-D RSCP Calculation
0 Distance (m) 3
5 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650 700 750 800 850 900 950 1000

-20
2.5
d1(km) d2(km)
2
-40

RSCP1 RSCP2
RSCP [dBm]

1.5
-60 CPICHa (36dBm) - 30m
log10(d)
CPICHb (30dBm) - 30m
1 (d-1)
-80
R Point 600m, -94.5dBm
0.5 0.4*(d-1)

-100 0.25*(d-1)
0
0.05
0.19
0.33
0.47
0.61
0.75
0.89
1.03
1.17
1.31
1.45
1.59
1.73
1.87
2.01
2.15
2.29
2.43
2.57
2.71
2.85
2.99
3.13
3.27
3.41

-120
-0.5

-1
Figure 4. Calculation of in-phase component magnitude (RSCP)
-1.5
At R, the following equations can be expressed.
Figure 5. Approximation of in-phase magnitude calculation
(1)
The minimum distance, satisfying eq.(12) can be found
(2) using the following expression:
Where, is the path loss from Cell_A to R and is | | (13)
the path loss from Cell_B to R. If Cell_A has a relative gain,
x in EIRP over Cell_B along the in-phase axis due to CPICH
power and the antenna pattern with the angles , : ( ( )) ( ) ( ( ))
(14)
(3)

Due to the high logarithmic approximation error for the

range less than 0.25km where the near field antenna effects
(4)
inaccuracy and the high path loss deviation, if
calculated from eq.(14) is less than 0.25km. ( )
{ (20)
In the calculation of the out-of-phase component, the ( ) ( )
alignment of the antenna bearing directions of the source cell
and the candidate target cell is reorganized as shown in the Where is the target cells antenna height.
Figure 6. The source cells actual antennas azimuthal angle
By taking account the practical cell radius and geography,
is inclined by degree from the reference vertical axis. If the
we can restrict the range of as .
source and the candidate target cells antennas are facing to
each other directly, the point, R, where the maximum and ( ) (21)
equal RSCP (or RSRP) from both cells, shall be on the in-
phase axis with distance from the source cell. However, in
general, the source cell or the candidate target cell are not { (22)
( )
facing directly so that the point, R with the maximum and
equal RSCP (or RSRP) from both cells shall be located The out-of-phase component is eventually expressed by:
somewhere along the perpendicular line extended from the
location, , which was obtained from the in-phase { { }}
component calculation. (23)
Main beams
direction The out-of-phase component is added to the in-phase
component to result in the final RSCP (or RSRP) at point, R
R that is used for ranking of the candidate neighbor cells. The
Main beams
rank from a source cell, S to a candidate target cell, T is
direction =0.1~2.0km
with 0.1km step
expressed by the following equation.
Target Cell (24)

Where, D is the distance from the source cell to the
candidate target cell. and are the antenna heights of the
Source Cell
source cell and the candidate target cell respectively.
is the EIRP of the source cell at .
Figure 6. Source cell and the candidate target cells antenna bearing re-
ogarnization for out-of-phase component

The out-of-phase component is defined as a relative gain

: Source cell's Antenna gain at R
to the in-phase component comprising of the relative antenna : Distance from source cell to R
gain and the relative propagation loss. In the Figure 7, the : Target cell's Antenna gain at R
relative antenna gain of the source cell at R compared to the : Distance from target cell to R

antenna gain of in-phase component is:

(15) d1
R
The relative path loss gain at R is:
yi
(16) d-d1

Where is the source cells antenna height. The source

cells out-of-phase component at becomes:
(17)
The candidate target cells out-of-phase component can be
obtained in the same way:
(18) Figure 7. Calculation of the out-of-phase component
Where, III. PARTIAL PATH LOSS COMPENSATION
(19) In the complicated real mobile network, the rank from a
source cell to a target cell could be different from the
opposite direction. Specifically when it comes to a neighbor
planning near the border area of two different topologies
urban area and suburban area where the density of the cells
are scares in suburban area, the ranks of the suburban cells as
the target cells are far lower from the urban cells so that the
suburban cells could be dropped off from the neighbor cell
list of the urban cells. If a call connection moves from a
suburban cell to an urban cell where the NR is not
constructed, the call will be dropped. Therefore, the density
of the cells needs to be considered for neighbor rank to
compensate the imbalanced neighbor rank problem.
In Figure 8, the sites originally positioned in the 2-
dimensional space are mapped to a one-dimensional axis
based on the inter-cell distances. Site2 is considered the
source cell and the remaining cells are to be ranked based on
the path loss. Since the Site3 ~ 6 are relatively close to Site2,
the RSCP (or RSRP) reduced by the path loss shall be smaller
than that of other cells that the rank must be higher. However,
Site1, even though the path loss is relatively higher from
Site2s perspective, must be ranked as a necessary neighbor
of Site2 because Site1 is in the 1st tier of the source cell,
Site1. In order to force the rank of Site1 higher, it is needed
to compensate the path loss from the source cell, Site2 to the
candidate target cell, Site1.
where Partial_Comp is 1/3.
(28)
Where Reference_Pathloss = 45dB based on actual path
loss in Tokyo area.
IV. VERIFICATION
A new set of neighbor list using the algorithm proposed in
this paper was built for the live WCDMA network and
benchmarked to the actual neighbor list of the network. The
benefits of new NCL is quantified in terms of SINR where S
is the total sum of the serving cells RSCP and neighbor cells
RSCP over all the grids belonging to the serving cells
coverage area and N is the total sum of all cells RSCP over
the same grids. The logic behind this quantification is that
SINR calculated in the serving cells coverage will be the best
when the NCL is optimally designed. The maximum number
of neighbor cells that a source cell can have was restricted to
less than 30.

PL1-4

Compensated PL1-3

PL1-2

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
PL3-2 Co
mp

PL4-2 o
m
p

PL5-2 o
m
p

PL6-2 Co
mp

Figure 8. Concept of the partial pathloss compensation

The concept of the partial path loss compensation is to

provide a priority gain (compensation) to the cells having
bigger cell coverage or cell distance to the neighboring cells
or 1st tier cells than a reference cell radius, which is the
average distance from the source cell to the 1st tier cells. Figure 9. Coverage grid for SINR benchmarking
Then, the partial path loss compensation is formulated as
The SINR adopted in this paper to quantify the new
follow:
algorithm is expressed by:
Rank*ST = RankST + (25) ( )
(29)
( )
( ( ( ) ( ))) (26)
Where is RSCP of the source cell and
and are source and target cells average inter-site is RSCPof the n-th neighbor cell,
distances to the 1st tier, respectively. Rank*ST is the respectively. is RSCP of other remaining cells
compensated rank and RankST is the original rank. is than the source and the neighbor cells. The SINRs calculation
the Path Loss Compensation. and are normalizers was performed for 20 cells of the live network and presented
based on the reference path loss from a reference cell having in the graph of Figure 10.
the cell radius of 750m and antenna height of 30m in urban Neighbor planning using the new algorithm reveals 10%
environments. increment in SINR compared to the actual neighbors based
= 1/2Partial_Comp = 16 (27) SINR. Moreover, the neighbor planning driven by the new
algorithm identified the undefined neighbors which need to
be added in the neighbor list, and could remove the
unnecessary ones while improving SINR.
Figure 10. Comparison of SINRs of new algorithms NCL and actual
NCL
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an algorithm for neighbor cell planning and
optimization based on tangent contour and vector component
calculations is proposed. This algorithm works ideally in
heterogeneous propagation conditions where the propagation
environments from a source cell to a target cell is different
from that of the opposite direction by using the tangent
contour concept. The algorithm also hires the partial path loss
compensation method to mitigate the disadvantage of the
target cells located in lower cell density area but in the 1 st tier
from the source cell to be selected as neighbor so that the
application of this algorithm to the network environments
with mixture of topology, e.g. urban and suburban, becomes
its forte. The results of neighbor cell planning is compared to
the actual live networks neighbor plan in terms of SINR and
it gives average 10% improved SINR for all the source cells
under verification test.
REFERENCES
[1] 3GPP TS 25.331 v8.18.0, Radio Resource Control (RRC);
Protocol specification (Release8), March 2012
[2] 3GPP TS 36.331 v8.6.0, E-UTRA; Radio Resource Control
(RRC); Protocol specification, June 2009
[3] 3GPP TS 36.300 v8.9.0, Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio
Access (E-UTRA) and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network
(EUTRAN); Overall description; Stage 2, June 2009
[4] S. Hamalainen, H. Sanneck and C. Sartori, LTE Self-Organising
Networks (SON), John Wiley & Sons, 2012