ABC Research project: “Analysis of Access Selection Algorithms for Always Best Connected Networks”
Developed by GPRT in association with Ericsson.
The project’s main deliverables include:
- Definition of QoS related access cost function using qualitiative parameters when dealing with different access technologies such as GSM, WLAN and W-CDMA as well as the definition of a common IP signalling plan;
- Produce guidelines for access provider’s to coordinate terminal access to their resources in order to maximize profit while minimizing resource usage (need to strike a balance between the two);
- Produce a comparative study of access algorithms in ABC networks and show that these are indeed necessary for both users and operators. A simulation tool for such a purpose will be built;
- A full document describing the algorithms and results will be produced at the end of the project;
ABC – Phase 2: RRM – Performance Evaluation of Radio Resource Management Algorithms for Multi-access Networks
Next generation wireless networks are expected to support multimedia services (voice, data) and composed of a wide range radio access technologies (RAT) such as cellular (WCDMA/HSDPA, GSM/EDGE/GPRS) and WLAN, forming a multi-access system that offers advanced voice and multimedia services.
In the existing radio access networks the management of the radio resources between the systems is performed in a distributed way and radio network controllers of different systems manage the resources independently. In order to deploy multi-access networks, understanding operating environments and coordinating their usage for more efficient use of the radio resources become important. This poses formidable challenges to the task of improving system performance by maximizing the overall system capacity and maintaining the QoS of multimedia traffic. By joining several RATs to compose a unified network, clearly some form of overall resource management is needed. Common Radio Resource Management (CRRM) has been introduced to perform these tasks. CRRM algorithms controls the existing resources most efficiently by considering all the available subsystems as a whole, rather than treating each access subsystem separately. Hence, this common operation of the network can benefit from the individual coverage and capacity characteristics of each technology, resulting in most economic solution providing the most appropriate radio bearers for the variety of different services. In the presence of multiple QoS requirements for different multimedia traffic, the key problem in the design of a multimedia wireless system is to balance the two opposing objectives of the network operator (or service provider) and mobile users.
In summary, this project aims at conducting an extensive survey about existing CRRM algorithms and common RAT in the context of multi-access, multi-service networks, studying the functional components of a set of RATs. The current Simulation Environment for ABC Networks (SEABC), developed in the ABC project (phase I) will be extended to implement the CRRM algorithms, RAT models, utility functions and metrics for evaluating the algorithms. This also includes developing a graphical user interface in order to make it easy to configure complex scenarios. Next, a set of specific scenarios of interest will be defined and the performance of the CRRM algorithms will be evaluated, focusing on the possible gains of using decentralized architectures or centralized ones and what are the involved tradeoffs. With the introduction and integration of systems with several modes and layers, CRRM becomes an ever increasingly complicated task. At the end of this project, it is expect that we have a broad knowledge of CRRM algorithms and the trade-offs involved in deploying it in a centralized or distributed way.