CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1

GENERAL
The growth of mobile communications is explosive and ha. grown from the

first and second-generation systems to the third generation's systems. First generation (IG) wireless mobile communication systems were developed in 1980s, which uses frequency modulation (FM) modulation and frequency division multiple access for (FDMA) for access. Examples of such systems are advanced mobile phone system (AMPS) in United States, Total Access Communication System (TACS) in Europe, and Japanese Total Access Communication Systems (JTACS). The user capacity of the 1G technology was heading towards saturation caused by the rapid growth of demands for mobile communications. The second-generation (2G) systems, introduced to the market around 1991, offered better voice quality and efficient spectrum utilization through digital modulation techniques. Presently, the 2G systems are Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), IS-136- time division multiple access (TDMA), or Digital AMPS (DAMPS), Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) and lnlerim Standard (IS-95) or cdmaOne. Besides voice services, the second generation systems can also provides short messages and low-rate data services at rates of 9.6-14.4kbps. Both 1G and 2G systems are circuit-switched, which are not efficient, especially in handling packetoriented services. 2.5G extend 2G systems, adding features such as packet-switched connection and enhanced data rates of 64-144 kbps. 2.5G networks include Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE) and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). These networks support WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). Shon Messaging Service (SMS), mobile games, and search and directory. The shift from cdmaOne to cdma2000 goes through cdma2000 Ix and cdma2000 3x. The divergence between standards limits the roaming of users between different networks. Table 1.1 shows the evolution trend of cellular mobile communication systems.

Table 1.1 Evolution of wireless communications

IG
Air interface Major Systems Switching Mode Circuit switched NAMPS FDMA 2G TDMA CDMA
2.5G

3G CDMA

4G CDMA

TDMA CDMA GPRS cdma2000 1 x Circuit/ Packet switched

GSM
cdmaOne Circuit switched

WCDMA cdma2000 Circuitl Packet switched Multimedia

WCDMA cdma2000 Circuit/ Packet switched Multimedia and virtual reality

Voice Applications only

Vo~ce mainly and low-rate data

Voice and data

Data rate

9.6- 14.4 Lhps

64-144 khps

384khps-2Mhps 10-IOOMbps

The third generation ( 3 G ) systems focused itself primarily on universality, hlgh data rate, flexibility, servlce quality and service nchnesa. The data ratea to be supported were at least 144 kbps in vehicular, 394 kbps in outdoor-to-indoor (wide environments (local area). 3G systems area), and up to 2 Mbps In indoor and p~cocells allowed both circuit switching and packet switching and opened the possibility to provide advanced and flexible qual~tyof service (QoS) support. Delay sensitive services, such as voice and video, were served in circuit-switched mode. while data traffic, which can tolerate relatively long delay, have been through packet switched mode to efficiently utilize the system resource.

The shift to 3G in the radio access networks is presently ongoing and Code division multiple access (CDMA) is the approach selected for 3G systems. Wideband CDMA (W-CDMA), using direct-sequence code division multiple access (DSCDMA) and cdma2000, multi-carrier CDMA technologies have been proposed by Europe and United States respectively for 3G [I-101. mobile communication systems is already Research on fourth generation (4G) underway and the objective is to i) provide higher data rate, ii) achieve global roaming and horizontal communications between different access technologies, and iii) offer a common platform, which can accommodate more advanced types of services. Even though mobility is the key for the development of 1G mobile communications, multiple incompatible standards in 1G prohibits the user roaming among different networks. Current user mobility support mechanisms can be divided into two categories: terminal (device) mobility and personal mobility. Terminal mobility refers to the networks' ability to provide support for handover between networks for mobile devices as they change point of access while still maintaining connectivity. Personal mobility refers to users' ability to access network services from any terminal at any location. Thus, personal mobility management schemes enable the network to identify end users, as their point and method of access change, Since then, user mobility has developed itself from "terminal mobility'' to "personal mobility". In

GSM systems, mobility

IS

centralized around the person who uses the terminal for one

or more applications, since the user can access any service by any networkcompatible terminal. This type of personal mobility is well supported in 3G systems and will be supported even more in 4G systems that provide seamless roaming between networks of different standards without any intemption.

In general, the rapid evolution of wireless mobile communications has been

driven by i) the high demand of wireless communications and mobility, ii) the requirements of high quality applications, iii) the need of new applications, and iv) technical development. Future wireless systems are required to provide greater mobility and adequate QoS support u a user moves from place to place. Future applications will demand more resource than ever and therefore, resource

management will play a vital role in future wireless communication system to maintain a target QoS and optimize network resource utilization.

1.1.1 Wireless Cellular Networks

Wireless cellular radio networks consists of four key components: a base transceiver station (BTS), base station controller (BSC), a mobile switching center (MSC), and the mobile station (MS) shown in Figure 1.1. Each cell needs a base as transceiver station-the tower that is transmitting the signals to and from the mobile unit. Each of these base transceiver stations, connects to an BSC. The base station controllers feed into the mobile switching center, which interfaces into the group of databases that enable roaming, billing, and interconnection, as well as sandwiches with gateways that can connect MS to Public Switching Telephone Network (PSTN) and other service providers. The databases critical to the process of roaming is breifed here:

Home location register (HLR) -provides information about the subscribers

in particular to mobile switching center.

register
.\I

j\'

.Base Transceiier S m o n tBTS)

BSC

.Bare StationControlle~

M S C .Mob~leSw~tch~npCenter

:,

.Mohlle Stwon

Figure 1.1 Wlreless cellular network architecture

Vbitor locatton register (VLR)

- stores information about the calls being

made by roaming subscribers and periodically forwards information to subscribers' home service providers for billing and other purposes. Each mobile service switching center must have a visitor location register.
a

Authentication center

- associates

itself with HLR and protects the

subscriber from unauthorized access, provides security that includes encryption and customer identification.
a

Equipment identity register

reason.

- registers the mobile equipment types, and

maintains a database of equipment that has been stolen or blacklisted for some

When a MS is on, it emits two numbers consistently: the electronic identification number and the actual phone number of the handset. These are picked up by the base transceiver stations, and depending on signal level, they determine whether the users' are well within the cell or transitioning out of that cell. If the power levels begin to weaken then it indicates that the mobile users are leaving the cell. An d e n is raised that queries the surrounding base transceiver stations to see who's picking up a strong signal coming in. When the MS crosses the cell perimeter, it is handed over to the free channel of the base station (BS) it enters.

1.1.2 Channel Allocation and Cali Admission Control Strategies

In order to establish the communication with a base station, a mobile terminal

must first obtain a channel from the base station. A channel consists of a pair of frequencies: one frequency (the forward link/downlink) for transmission from the base station to the mobile terminal, and another frequency (the reverse linkluplink) for the transmission in the reverse direction. Since the available frequency spectrum is limited the channels must be reused as much as possible in order to increase the system capacity, which requires a proper channel assignment scheme. The role of a channel assignment scheme is to allocate channels to cells or mobiles so as to minimize call blocking and call dropping probabilities, maximize the quality of service and trunking efficiency and hence ultimately satisf) both service provider and subscriber. The channel assignment schemes in general can be classified into three categories: fixed channel assignment (FCA), dynamic channel assignment (DCA),

and the hybrid channel assignment (HCA). In FCA, the set of channels are permanently allocated to each cell based on pre-estimated traffic intensity [ 11, 121. In DCA, there is no permanent allocation of channels to cells, entire set of available channels is accessible to all the cells, and are assigned on a call-by-call basis [13-151. One of the objectives in DCA is to develop a channel assignment strategy, which minimizes the total number of blocked calls. FCA scheme is simple but does not adapt to changing traffic conditions and user distribution. These deficiencies are overcome by DCA but FCA out performs most known schemes in DCA under heavy load conditions [13-171. HCA overcomes the drawbacks of both FCA and DCA, by combining the features of both techniques. In HCA one set of channels is allocated as per the FCA scheme, and another set is allocated as per the DCA scheme [la-211. In the flexible channel allocation (FLCA) schemes, the set of available channels is divided into fwed and flexible sets [22]. Each cell is assigned a set of fixed channels that typically suffices under a light traffic load. The flexible channels are assigned to those cells whose channels have become inadequate under increasing traffic loads. The assignment of these channels among the cells is done in either a scheduled or predictive manner. In the predictive strategy, the traffic intensity or, equivalently, the blocking probability is constantly measured at every cell site so that the reallocation of the flexible channels can be carried at any point in time. If the flexible channels are assigned on a scheduled basis, it is assumed that the variation of traffic, such as the movement of traffic peaks in time and space, are estimated apriori. The change in assignment of flexible channels is made at the predetermined peaks of traffic change. Flexible assignment strategies require the central controller to possess up-to-date
ra information about the traffic pattern in its ae s in order to manage the assignment of

the flexible channels 1231. In addition, the scheduled flexible assignment 1221 is not adaptive to unexpected changes of traffic but sufficiently reduces the processing load of the system controller as compared to HCA and DCA schemes. Future wireless networks are evolving towards supporting a broad spectrum of data applications. One side of the spectrum is real-time applications needing strong bandwidth guarantees. The other side of the spectrum is rnultimedia/adaptive applications, which can operate over a wide range of bandwidth. In a wireless/mobile networks, when a user handoffs to a new cell, there may not be sufficient available channels to support his bandwidth requirements. Under such a crisis. there are two

possibilities based on the nature of the application. In the case of a non-adaptive application requiring strict bandwidth guarantees, the call will be dropped, whereas in the case of adaptive applications, such as multimedia services, the call will not be drop@ but will suffer bandwidth degradation. For most multimedia applications (e.g., voice, video telephony or video conferencing), service can be degraded in case of congestion as long a it is still within the pre-specified tolerable range, and it could free some channels for new calls by lowering the QoS levels of ongoing calls. A graceful degradation mechanism proposed by Singh [24] increases bandwidth utilization by adaptively adjusting bandwidth allocation according to the user-specified loss profiles. Sen et al [25] have proposed an optimal degradation strategy by maximizing a revenue function. Sherif et al 1261 have come up with an adaptive resource allocation algorithm to maximize handwidth utilization and tried to achieve fairness with a generic algorithm. in these papen, sptem performance, in terms of handwidth uulization or service pmv~der'\ revenue can he improved hignificantly hy graceful QoS degradation. Hou,ever,they did not pmvide any analysis for service degradation of individual calls, whtch
ib

cructal to QoS provision. Kwon et al I271 have derived a degrodarion period

rurro under the a\sumption that the deprddation probabiltty and mean degradation

time we kept intact in all degradation stares. Monover, it is shown numerically that the degradation ratio dtw3 not suffice to reflect the QoS guarantees given to individual call\. Frequently swttchinp among the different degradauon levels may be even worse than a large degradatton ratio (28). 1.12 I!ser Mobility .and Rcsaurce Reservation in W i n k s Networks In a cellular network. a rnohile user may v~stt differrnt cells in his lifetime and in each of hesc cells, reswnvs muM he made available ro support the mobile u.ser else the user will suffer a f m e d tennation of his call In progress. Tkrcfore. ciueful
mourcc allocaton along with call admtssion contrul is required to mitigate the

chances of forced termination or dropplng of a call. Due to the uncertainty impxed by the mobility of the user, it is impractical from the utilization stand point to complelely clin~inate c h m s of drapping a cdl. Thus. keeping the prohahility of the
P

user getting dm@

below a pre-specified target value is considered to he the goal

of any resource allocation scheme. Achieving the above goal provides the probabilistic quality of service (QoS) guarantee as desired by a mobile user. This can be achieved by bandwidth reservation which allows trading-off between the dropping probability of hand-off calls and the blocking probability of new calls, thereby increasing the bandwidth utilization [29-34). ln order to optimize and dynamically adjust the amount of the reserved bandwidth, an accurate pmhction of the future movements of the user, based on the cumnt network conditions is required. Although in future, it may be possible to provide exact information about the cells a user is likely to visit, it may be still difficult for the same user to provide a priori information about when the users' may visit these cells. Consequently, there exists uncertainty about the users' mobility behaviour; it hecomes a challenging task to predict the user movements and to reserve bandwidth that reduces the degradation of communication quality due to handoffs failure in cellular networks.
1.2

1,ITERATURE SURVEY
The main focus on research concerning channel assignment is to find

\trategles that give maximal channel reuse without violating the constraints so that hltxk~ngia minimal. A number of wireless call admission control schemes have been proposed and studtcd whtch can be used to limit the handoff blocking probability to a predefined level (35-371. 51mpleat way of as~gning Thc priority to handoff calls is to rcurve some channels for handoff call5 explicitly tn each cell. In the literature, this <heme
13

referred to i ~ the crrrr~flpriorit!schrmr (CPSI138-401 or the ~ u a r d \ channcl effective only under stationary traffic

.sc./~rn~r [JI-441. In whlch a fixed number of channels in each cell are exclusively reurved lor handofls. Such schemes
iye

condit~ons(451, and nsk under-utilizing the specvum (281. Tne queuing of handoff q u e s t . with or without employment of guard channels, is another pnoritiring scheme which reducrs the prohability of forced term~nationof handoff calls at the expense of an increase in call blocking pmhability and a decrease in the ratio ol carried to admitted trafiic (46493. In [.SO]. Naghsh~nehand Schwant have dcvelopod a theoretical model to so 5 compute the resource requirements for handoff r e q r r s ~ ~ a to maintain a target handoff blocking probability. Their model ha$ heen huilt on the assumption that all

connection requests arc identical and the analysis has been canied out for a simple three-cell configuration under stationary traffic conditions. In (511. Yu and Leung have proposed a technique to compute the capacity to be reserved for handoff requests so as to either strictly or loosely maintain the handoff blocking probability within a specified target. This method has assumed exponentially distributed cell residence time, which is not practical, and also it has considered connection request to be identical which is not true for multimedia services. Levine et al [ 5 2 ] have evolved a scheme to dynamically reserve and allocate bandwidth resources b a d on the mobility information obtained from both local and neighhouring cells. The effectiveness of this scheme, however, is closely associated with the amount of knowledge about mobile terminals (MT) dynamics and call holding patterns. In the form of prohability density functions (PDFs), as well as the variances in these PDFs, which is d~fficult predict. to In [58]. Ollveira et al have formulated an admission control scheme in which
a neu4mndoff call is accepted only if it can successfully reserve bandwidth in all

adjacent cell\, over and above the available bandwidth in the local cell. The redundant reservation of bandwidth in all adjacent cells is inevitable, since there is no consideration for the ~ndividualtrends of the users in the network. e.g. position. speed. and directlnn. In addition. each MT ha\ to reserve bandwidth in its neighhouring cells the moment
11 enten

a cell. This ~nflexlhilityin reservation location and timing could

lead to under-utilization of handwidth rewurces. In recent years, many reurnhers have proposed mohility prediction schemes to rewrve radio resources and to preconfipure network>. w that a smaller dropping pmhrhility and \honer handover latency can he achieved. However. reservation and prc-configuration in the entire service region [ W ] is excessively agressive. and msults in schemes that arc extremely inefficient and unreliable. To overcome this, the mobility pattern of a user can he exploited and the reservation procedure can be limited to the regions of the network a user is likely to visit. The mobile motion prediction in literature includes. mobile motion prediction algorithm I551 based on the user's movement history. profile h a d nextcell prediction algorithm (561 based on the user's movement history and the clusification

of locations and mobility estimate-time windows algorithm [57] which assumes mobile handoff to neighbouring cell with equal probability. These algorithms fail due to their inability to adapt to even the smallest d e g m of random variation in user behaviour. A method for predicting user mobility has been presented recently in [58]. which uses a predictive bandwidth-reservation scheme to provide probabilistic QoS guarantees. is based on the observed history of mobility information. Although this method does not rely on potentially unrealistic assumptions, it suffers from the drawback of high complexity and implementation overheads 1591. The predictive distance ha\cd scheme [60] has sought to exploit the predictability of user mobility patterns in wireless network5 assuming that as users generally travel with a perceived destination in mind, their future velocity and location are likely to be correlated with their present location and velocity. The studie\ that have attempted to perform mobility prediction based on mohile positiiming 161. 621, have conbrdered either hexagonal or circular cell boundaries for 9implicity rnstead of realistic case. In 1631, a decentralized prediction scheme h a heen proposed in which individual MTs equipped with positioning capahlllty hate pcrfonned mohility predictions based on approximated cell h u n w dote that were downloaded from the wrving BS hut it does not incorporate road top~logy information. Funhermore.
II

ha\ teen shown that movement prediction can he used for

dapt~vc resource managenlent in wlreless *ptem* [ H I . The regular palh recogn~tion method 1651 h a attempted to cxpltr~t regularity in h u m hehavicwr in terms of pcntdic or repcr~tlveactrvlties. rationale hehind the scheme

F. Yu 1661 ha\ proposed statistical prediction of user

mohllity for mohillty bawd call admission convol and bandwidth rese~ation.The that a user'h mobility pattern is a reflection of routines and most mohilc u x r ' s cxhihrt favorite mutes and habitual movement patterns. In

1671 a mohility l e m i n g and prediction s h e n w has heen proposed for restoration of

mfiility datahaws in PCS networks. Although the prrft~rmancc these algorithms is of accurate with regular movement patterns. accurate prediction of random movements h s not k n addressed.

Some of the more prominent mobility models (68-741 that have been proposed in the literature include random walk model, the random waypoint model, GaussMarkov model, and Markov chain model. However, some recent investigations have shown that many of them do not accuraiely represent actual user trajectories in real wireless networks [75]. A linear system model of mobility has been applied to realtime mobility tracking 1761. However, the specification of an optimal set of linear system model parameters is not straightforward in general and they cannot adapt to significant changes in the model parameten over time. One promising approach of mobile tracking techniques is the integration of a global positioning system (GPS) receiver in each MT. According to Y. Zhao [77], it is very reasonable to expect aqsisted GPS positioning methods to yield an accuracy of lerh than 20 m during 67% of the time. Predicting the trajectory of mobile terminals
1781 and call-level QoS [79] to perform resource reservations based on Geographic

Information System (GIs1 information is suitable for uniform traffic pattern only. A
811 mobile's next cell 1s predicted based on the previous traveled cells [80. using

~nformationtheory method. The result5 are inaccurate and reduce the call dropping prohahility with increae in the new call blocking probability.

Mobility prediction and handwidth allocation strategies reponed in the I~teritureis r~mplefor a~niulauonand modelling but does not accurately match with the user trajectones in real wireless networks. Consequently, such models may result ~n misleading characterizations of network performance and are not sufficiently rich to rnahle accurate and precise real-t~memobility uacking. As a result, resource resentation rchcmes need to reserve excessive resources. and preconfiguration/rdaptation doe% not work well. Hence, mobility prediction xhemes.

insensitive to r a n d o m s s of user movement patterns, offering seamless and heterogeneous mohility with a high level of prediction accuracy are needed. indeed with minimal conuol overhead.

A way to achieve the above said goal is to combine channel assignment with

mobility management or power assignment. Many algorithms have been proposed to address CAC and mobility management in cellular networks separately, but not many repons are found in literature using a common approach. This has motivated the author to design a common framework to enable CAC and mobility management t o improve the network capacity through efficient utilivltion of channel resources.
1.4 RESEARCH OVERVIEW AND CONTRIBUTIONS
A new combined framework of CAC and user mobility prediction scheme is

proposed which incorporates quality-of-mice requirements for various services and the mobility model is
aimed to

improve the network capacity through efficient

utilization of channel resources in cellular networks. A flexible channel allocation scheme using predictive strategy is proposed, which has the capacity to adapt to changing mobility patterns and makes use of prediction models to attain high utilization of the network resources. A cell paflitioninglsectorization concept is proposed to add an additional level of location description to differentiate varying future locations of a mobile user depending on its moving direction. thus reducing compulation overhead. It deals with various bandwidth resenpation schemes that exploit the mobility prediction of both regular and random user movements from its current position. velocity, and cell geometry, via different coverage zones hithin a cell or the GPS in urban. suburban. city-street and highway micro/macrocellular environments. The predicted information is in turn incorporated into bandwidth allocation algorithms to improve connection quality in cellular networks. The prediction accuracy of the proposed mobility prediction schemes is verified through simulation and it is proved by using prediction that if bandwidth is reserved for a mobile prior to its entry in cell. lower connection dropping probability can be achieved.
1.5 THESIS ORGANIZATION

In broad-specpum, this research aims to explore a combined h e w o r k of the bandwidth reservation and allcation with the use of mobility prediction in cellular networlcs. This dissertation is organized as follows:

Chapter1 provides an overview of resource management issues in wireless networks. The need for user mobility prediction and bandwidth reservation is highlighted. Extensive reviews of the previous work relating to resource management algorithms, the author's contribution in the related areas are covered. Chapter 2 presents multimedia call model, mobility model and bandwidth management strategy ac an integrated framework for cellular multimedia networks. The framework reserves bandwidth by considering priority among component calls and provides a flexible bandwidth allocation algorithm. When there is no available handwidth for a handoff call, a low priority component call is eliminated and defers bandwidth allocation for a component call whose delay related QoS is not strict. Effectiveness of this scheme is verified through simulation, which indicates high utilization of handwidth and reduces call-dropping probability. Chapter 3 investigates Wiener prediction based flexible channel allocation algorithm which models the instantaneous amount of resource demands. The performance evaluat~onwiener prediction method is given and it is inferred that the propowd wheme reduces the call dropping prohahility of handoff calls and call hltrkinp probahility of new calls compared with existing collaborative method in the mul~imedia mohile environment. It i+ also inferred that queuing implementation reduces the call blocking prohahilit~esand increasa the channel utilization. thereby providing better @S. Chapter 4 pmposeie\ a novel algonthm that utilizes the real time positioning infimnation ohtained from augmented GPS for mobility prediction and the associated handwdth rcwmation considering a fuzzy type of cell with irregular boundaries. This inlegrated fran~eworkassumes that Base Stations (BS)is equipped with road-map information and that the mobile terminals are equipped with GPS devices. Prediction accuracy. blwking pmbah~lity. handoff pmhahility and forced termination are ohtrined for the proposed algorithm and are compared with rhr existing algorithms. In C h q e r 5, a new integrated framework of sectonzed mohility prediction mechanism and adaptive bandwidth-management algorithms that are suitable for multimedia cellular networks is explained. A region panitmn and cell numbering

scheme is introduced to add an additional level of location &scription to differentiate varying future locations of a mobile user depending on its moving direction, thus reducing computation overhead. It is shown that Adaptive bandwidth allocation algorithm has the ability to respond to the changing network conditions quickly and effectively. It also highlight how the relative priorities and fairness among traffic classes arc maintained by taking the user QoS profile and real traffic conditions into account. The simulation results reveal that the bandwidth utilization is improved, call dropping and blocking probabilities are lowered both in uniform and non-uniform traffic load distributions in the mobile cellular network. Chapter 6 concludes this rcsearch study by discussing the impacts of integrated framework of user mobility prediction based bandwidth reservation and flexible admission control schemes and its ability to adapt for varying mobility patterns with high ut~lizationof the network resources. It opens up some problems for funher work in this area.