The basic principle of DCC is shown in Figure 5.35(b). When BS
2
reduces its pilot-signal
transmission power (P
P2
), the cell boundary moves toward BS
2
. The area of BS
2
decreases,
and some MSs that were in the BS
2
cell are reallocated to the BS
1
cell. At the same time, MSs
reconnected to BS
1
increase their transmission power (T
M
) to meet the target power level of
BS1 (S
L1
). This action, however, increases the interference with BS
2
.BS
2
thus raises its target
power level (S
L2
) to improve the local anti-interference characteristics, and BS
1
decreases its
target power level (S
L1
) to balance the volume of interference between cells. These power
adjustments take place independently at each BS so that the communication-quality level
equals the target quality level.
Figure 5.36 shows an example DCC structure at a BS. Only three functions need to be
added to a conventional BS: calculating the difference from the SIR target, calculating
updated power level values, and determining pilot signal transmission powers and target
powers. The DCC control unit is located a layer above the TPC ones. The DCC controls
the power levels so the measured SIR level, SIR(t), meets to the SIR target level, SIR
O
. The
difference between the measured SIR and the target SIR is sent to a signal converter and used
as the update value for the pilot-signal transmission power. The target power level, S
L
(t), is
updated in inverse relation to the update of pilot-signal power, assuming that the propagation
loss is the same in both the uplink and the downlink. A TPC controller sends the power-up/
down information to each MS, therefore the uplink signal from each one meets S
L
(t). The
interval of DCC control can be determined according to the variation in teletraffic and
interference.
5.5.6 Evaluation of DCC
Figure 5.37 shows the effect of DCC on traffic bias. In this simulation, the traffic load at the
centre cell was increased to five times the average load while the overall total load stayed
unchanged. The abscissa indicates the traffic bias (traffic load at centre cell/average traffic
load). We evaluated the SIR of three schemes at the centre and at its adjacent cells:
† in fixed-level power control (FPC), the BS target power level was fixed;
† in adaptive-level power control (APC), only the target power level was controlled accord-
ing to the SIR (this method is equivalent to SIR-based TPC);
† in DCC, the pilot-signal power level and the target power level were adjusted.
Initiatives in 4Gmobile Design 311
Figure 5.36 An example of DCC structure.
The SIR in the centre cell fell greatly with FPC as the traffic load of the centre cell
increased. The SIR in the adjacent cells decreased slightly because of increased interference
from the centre cell. With APC, the SIR in the centre cell remained above 215 dB up to a
traffic bias level of 3.0. For levels above 3.0, the SIR in the centre cell decreased significantly
because APC only controls the transmission power. The SIR degradation in the adjacent cells
was the largest among the three schemes. With DCC, the centre cell SIR stayed close to the
target of 214.5 dB at all traffic-bias levels. The SIR in the adjacent cells gradually decreased
because some traffic in the centre cell was reallocated to these adjacent cells. When the traffic
load increases (or the transmission rate increases) at certain cells, degradation in quality can
be prevented by configuring cell areas adaptively and setting power levels appropriately to
improve the efficiency of the system.
5.5.7 Characteristics in Up and Downlinks
The characteristics in the uplink and downlink of cellular radio systems are not coincident
because these system structures are different. When traffic is uneven, it influences on commu-
nication quality differently for the two types of links [44,75,134]. In multimedia communica-
tions, the volume of teletraffic is greatly different in the up and downlink. Therefore,
controlling a cell area as DCC affects the links differently. We calculated the optimum cell
boundary for each uplink and downlink under uneven teletraffic conditions. The traffic load in
the centre cell was larger than that in the other cells. The transmission power of the pilot
signal was changed to control the cell areas. The power levels in the uplink and downlinks –
the target power level in the uplinks and the total transmission power in the downlinks – can
be controlled. The evaluation results for the uplink are shown in Figures 5.38 and 5.39.
The traffic load in the centre cell was 25, 35, or 50 erl, while that in the other cells was
constant at 10 erl. The target power level at each BS was adjusted to eliminate any SIR
differences between cells for each pilot-signal power level at the centre cell, which is shown
on the abscissa. The target-power level in the centre cell is plotted, as well as the SIR obtained
Broadband Wireless Mobile: 3G and Beyond312
Figure 5.37 Effect of DCC on traffic bias.
when the SIRs in the centre and adjacent cells were equal. When the traffic load was 20 erl,
the highest SIR was obtained at a pilot power level of 26 dB. This means the cell boundary
moved towards the centre cell BS, and the effective area of the centre cell was reduced to
balance the traffic load: the cell radius was reduced by 80% and its area by 65%. When the
traffic load was 50 erl, the highest SIR was obtained at a pilot signal power level of 213 dB.
The SIR level improved by about 2.7 dB from when the pilot-signal power level was 0 dB,
Initiatives in 4Gmobile Design 313
Figure 5.38 Effect of area control in uplink: SIR.
Figure 5.39 Effect of area control in uplink: target-power increase.
where the cell boundary was positioned halfway between the BSs. The target power level at
the centre BS increased by 11.1 dB for a traffic load of 50 erl. The centre BS required a higher
target power level than the adjacent ones to resist the interference from adjacent cells that had
enlarged their cell areas.
Figures 5.40 and 5.41 show the downlink performance obtained when the total transmis-
sion power was adjusted to equalise the SIRs of the centre and adjacent cells. The traffic
load in the centre cell was 50 erl. The orthogonality factor, F
O
, in the downlink was
assumed to be 1.0, 0.8, 0.5, or 0.2. When F
O
is 1.0, the signals are fully orthogonal, and
when F
O
is 0.2, 80% of the transmission power from the connected BS becomes interfer-
ence. When F
O
is 1.0, the power level of the pilot signal had to be 7 dB to obtain the highest
SIR. The total transmission power at the centre cell increased by about 8.1 dB. The effective
area of the centre cell widened in spite of the large traffic load when perfect orthogonality
was assumed. The highest SIRs were obtained at pilot-signal power levels of 2 dB when F
O
¼ 0.8, and at 213 dB when F
O
¼ 0.2. When F
O
was 0.2, the centre cell’s total transmission
power increased by 28.7 dB.
The appropriate location of a cell boundary differed according to the expected downlink
orthogonality. If the area control is used in both the up and downlinks, the cell boundaries are
not always coincident, and different BSs might be selected for the two links to manage
uneven traffic [127].
5.5.8 Future Works
This section has described the issues of teletraffic and its preventive measures based on a
dynamic cell configuration in CDMA systems. Potential access methods are being considered
in 4G systems. System configuration depending on the access method might be developed.
The method introduced in this section concentrates on CDMA systems, and it will need to be
Broadband Wireless Mobile: 3G and Beyond314
Figure 5.40 Effect of area control in downlink: SIR.
adapted for use in other systems. In multimedia and personal communications, however, cell
areas will be reduced further, and traffic variation and unevenness will expand. Adapting cell
configurations and power settings to teletraffic conditions are crucial to enhancing the system
efficiency for all types of cellular systems.
5.6 CDMA Cellular Packet Communications
Packet communication services are already being provided in current (2nd-generation)
mobile communication systems. These services, however, are achieved by utilising some
channel resources of circuit-switching systems that mainly provide voice communications.
This system configuration has few capabilities of providing highly efficient packet commu-
nication services. Moreover, 3rd-generation systems provide packet communication services
through a similar system configuration. Current trends of mobile communications suggest
that data traffic will occupy a major portion of system traffic in the future mobile commu-
nication systems, and 4th-generation systems have to be especially suitable for data commu-
nications. From this point of view, the 4th-generation systems are expected to adopt a system
configuration in which all information is transmitted on the basis of packet communications.
Research of radio packet communications for mobile communication systems has been
quite active in recent years. However, most of these researches focus on transmission
schemes and medium access control (MAC) protocols [14,24,41,64,82,92,117,146]. In
this regard, research of system configuration technologies in a cellular environment is indis-
pensable for constructing a mobile communication system in which all information is to be
transmitted by packets. In this section, we focus on CDMA packet communications and
introduce some examples of research activities, which aim to achieve efficient CDMA packet
communications in a cellular environment.
Initiatives in 4Gmobile Design 315
Figure 5.41 Effect of area control in downlink: total-power increase.
5.6.1 Transmission Power Control for Connection-less Services
Transmission power control (TPC) is able to increase the maximum value of throughput in
the uplink of CDMA cellular packet communication systems [64]. Under heavy channel load
conditions, however, TPC also degrade throughput performance dramatically and throughput
decreases below a level corresponding to no use of TPC [117]. The cause of this intrinsic
problem can be explained as follows. In the situation that many packets arrive simultaneously
at a base station, the quality drops for all arriving packets due to multiple-access interference,
and in the worst case, no packets at all can be received at a base station. The degradation of
throughput performance under heavy channel load has not been a serious problem in the
conventional circuit-switching systems because traffic control such as call admission control
and similar techniques is easy to perform in these systems.
Fourth-generation mobile communication systems are assumed to provide new types of
communication services such as connection-less services in which no call admission control
is performed. In connection-less services, however, it is not easy to achieve traffic control
through a simple method and traffic generated at each mobile station tends to be burst-like in
nature. Accordingly, traffic fluctuation is large compared to conventional circuit-switching
systems. If such a system employs conventional open-loop TPC in which received power at
base stations is made constant for all packets, transmission efficiency would drop rapidly and
system quality would be degraded when the system should temporarily fall into a heavy load
condition. This is a problem affecting system stability, and improvement of throughput
performance is therefore desirable to maintain system stability under heavy channel load.
In this regard, the capture effect caused by differences in received power is considered to be
effective for improvement of system stability [42]. In the following, we describe a transmis-
sion power control method that adapts to channel load by making use of this capture effect in
heavy-channel-load conditions [86].
5.6.1.1 Load-based transmission power control
In load-based transmission power control, the target received power at a receiving base
station, that is, the target value of transmission power control at a mobile station, varies
according to the location of the mobile station (Figure 5.42). Target received power at each
location, moreover, is adaptively controlled according to channel load.
In this method, the mobile station first estimates its distance from the connecting base
station (the base station targeted for transmission power control) by measuring received
power of a pilot signal. Then, it determines its target received power P
tgt
corresponding to
the estimated distance by referencing a target received power function which is controlled at
the base station and broadcast to the mobile station. After that, the mobile station computes
transmission power based on target received power P
tgt
and finally performs packet transmis-
sion.
The base station, on the other hand, adaptively controls the target received power function
according to channel load. This function relates target received power P
tgt
to distance d from
the connecting base station. The example of this function is a linear function as illustrated in
Figure 5.43. Using this function, the base station controls DP
tgt
, the difference in target
received power according to distance. DP
tgt
is set to a large value when channel load is
large and a small value when channel load is small.
Broadband Wireless Mobile: 3G and Beyond316
Although it is difficult to correctly estimate channel load in the uplink at a base station in
the case of connection-less services, it is possible, for example, to use N
rx
, the number of
correctly received packets in a certain period, to estimate channel load. In DP
tgt
can be
controlled by observing the number of packets N
rx
received in a certain period at the base
station and then comparing the N
rx
obtained in this period with that of the previous observa-
tion period. DP
tgt
can be updated in the same direction as the previous control if N
rx
has
increased, and updated in the opposite direction if N
rx
has decreased, with the result that DP
tgt
is always updated in the direction of increasing N
rx
.
As described above, the load-based transmission power control method adjusts a target
received power function so that the difference in the target received power of packets trans-
mitted from different distances from the base station is made large in the case of heavy
channel loads. This makes it possible to obtain a capture effect due to differences in received
power and to suppress degradation in transmission performance. Furthermore, by setting
target received power near the cell boundary smaller than that near the base station, the
transmission power of packets transmitted near the cell boundary can be kept lower and
the amount of interference on adjacent cells minimised.
Initiatives in 4Gmobile Design 317
Figure 5.42 Transmission power control based on mobile-station position.
Figure 5.43 Setting function for target received power.
5.6.1.2 Transmission characteristics
Figure 5.44 shows the throughput performance on the uplink of CDMA cellular packet
communication systems with load-based transmission power control. Here, the cellular
system is configured as a 5 £ 5 arrangement of regular hexagonal cells and the radio channel
suffers from propagation loss and shadowing fluctuation. Transmission power control,
however, can compensate for propagation loss and shadowing fluctuation, and it is assumed
to be perfect. Spread factor is 16 and the access protocol is slotted-ALOHA.
In this figure, throughput performances are shown for the cases of no transmission power
control (Non-TPC), conventional transmission power control in which target received power
is constant for all packets (Conventional TPC), and the proposed transmission power control
(Proposed TPC). Conventional TPC achieves greatly improved maximum throughput
compared to Non-TPC and this result is the same as described in Ref. [3]. After reaching
maximum throughput, however, throughput performance of Conventional TPC drops off
rapidly as channel load increases and eventually become worse than the performance
obtained by Non-TPC. On the other hand, performance degradation in the same region is
extremely small in the case of Proposed TPC and maximum throughput is nearly maintained.
In addition, Proposed TPC obtain throughput equivalent to those of Conventional TPC in the
light-load region. Therefore Proposed TPC achieves good performance over all load regions.
From these results, it can be seen that use of the proposed method can expand the practical
channel load region.
Figure 5.45 shows slot error rate as a function of channel load. Here, slot error rate is
defined as the possibility that a base station fails to receive all packets in a slot where mobile
stations transmit one or more packets. As shown in Figure 5.45, Proposed TPC exhibits
greatly improved slot error rate under heavy channel load indicating that the capture effect
is well working in this region. This improvement in slot error rate through the capture effect
contributes to improved throughput performance in the proposed method.
5.6.2 Service Fairness in a System with Site Diversity Reception
Soft handoff is widely used in circuit-switching CDMA cellular systems. Mobile stations
Broadband Wireless Mobile: 3G and Beyond318
Figure 5.44 Throughput performance.
communicate with several base stations simultaneously in soft handoff state. Site diversity
reception in the uplink of radio packet communications is a similar technique to soft handoff
from the viewpoint of simultaneous reception. Channel utilisation (for example throughput
performance) improves if site diversity reception is performed for the uplink in a narrow-
band radio packet communications [109]. This is because the possibility exists that a packet
will be received by another base station with little interference even if the connecting base
station does not receive that packet.
On the other hand, transmission power control (TPC) is generally used in CDMA cellular
systems, and when applying TPC, fair service can be provided to mobile stations in all areas
within the cell. Fair service is also provided by TPC for the uplink in CDMA cellular packet
communications. Applying site diversity in the uplink of CDMA cellular packet commu-
nications, however, brings geographical fluctuation in successful reception across the entire
cell because site diversity rescues the packets originating mainly from near the cell bound-
aries. As a consequence, service quality at a mobile station depends on the position of the
mobile station, and as a result, the system has geographical unfairness in service provision
within the cell.
In packet communications, a packet that fails to receive at its destination will be retrans-
mitted. Packet retransmissions increase the traffic from areas with inferior quality and result
in geographical non-uniformity in amount of traffic. This non-uniformity can have a negative
influence on total system performance in CDMA cellular packet systems [132].
In the following, fairness in service provision is first examined from the viewpoint of
successful packet reception rate when applying site diversity to the uplink in a CDMA
cellular slotted-ALOHA system, and it is pointed out that geographical unfairness in service
provision exists. Next, transmission power control based on difference in pilot-signal
received power is described as a technique for relieving this unfairness [87].
5.6.2.1 Examination of service fairness
As shown in Figure 5.46, site diversity reception is defined as simultaneous reception by
MSD base stations from among all the base stations in a service area. For given packets, these
MSD base stations are the ones that have the highest power levels of received packets. Site
Initiatives in 4Gmobile Design 319
Figure 5.45 Packet error rate characteristics.
diversity is always applied for each packet and all error-free packets are correctly received
without relation to their spread codes.
Figure 5.47 shows an example of transmission performance when applying conventional
transmission power control in which target received power is constant for all packets. In
Figure 5.47, a successful reception rate is shown for each area when cells are divided into ten
concentric regions of equal area. We assign each region with a number where smaller
numbers correspond to regions closer to the base station. As can be seen, site diversity
significantly improves successful reception rate near the cell boundary – the closer is the
region to the boundary the greater is the improvement.
This is because that the possibility that another base station can receive the packet is higher
for packets originating near the cell boundary. On the other hand, when not applying site
diversity, successful reception rate is essentially the same for all regions and fair service can
be provided. Accordingly, the application of site diversity reception generates geographical
fluctuation in successful reception rate and brings unfairness in service provision.
Broadband Wireless Mobile: 3G and Beyond320
Figure 5.46 Site diversity reception.
Figure 5.47 Successful reception rate characteristics.
. cellular radio systems are not coincident
because these system structures are different. When traffic is uneven, it influences on commu-
nication quality differently. this function, the base station controls DP
tgt
, the difference in target
received power according to distance. DP
tgt
is set to a large value when channel