Large-Scale Spatial Distribution Identification of Base Stations in Cellular Networks

Abstract

The performance of cellular system significantly depends on its network topology, where the spatial deployment of base stations (BSs) plays a key role in the downlink scenario. Moreover, cellular networks are undergoing a heterogeneous evolution, which introduces unplanned deployment of smaller BSs, thus complicating the performance evaluation even further. In this paper, based on large amount of real BS locations data, we present a comprehensive analysis on the spatial modeling of cellular network structure. Unlike the related works, we divide the BSs into different subsets according to geographical factor (e.g. urban or rural) and functional type (e.g. macrocells or microcells), and perform detailed spatial analysis to each subset. After examining the accuracy of Poisson point process (PPP) in BS locations modeling, we take into account the Gibbs point processes as well as Neyman-Scott point processes and compare their accuracy in view of large-scale modeling test. Finally, we declare the inaccuracy of the PPP model, and reveal the general clustering nature of BSs deployment, which distinctly violates the traditional assumption. This paper carries out a first largescale identification regarding available literatures, and provides more realistic and more general results to contribute to the performance analysis for the forthcoming heterogeneous cellular networks.

What is the Best Spatial Distribution to Model Base Station Density? A Deep Dive into Two European Mobile Networks

“…The closest work to this paper is [3], in which authors have evaluated how much the α-Stable distribution matches the real one in three Chinese cities. In contrast to them, in this work we move five significant steps further by:…”

“…• investigating what is the best distribution across different BS deployment scenarios, and not only urban ones like in [3]. Our goal is in fact to find, behind the evidences of α-Stable distribution, also its boundaries, i.e., the limits of applicability of this model.…”

“…On the other side, it is possible to provide insights into the evolution of the network as well. Specifically, the definition of theoretical models to predict the spatial distribution of BSs is gaining significant momentum [3]. In the past, one of the most popular models in cellular networks assumed that the BSs were placed at the corners of a hexagon, forming a hexagonal grid.…”

Area Spectral Efficiency and Energy Efficiency Tradeoff in Ultradense Heterogeneous Networks

“…According to (22), we can infer that if the BS density in each tier is set properly, maximum EE under the ASE constraint will be achieved. But, it is difficult to solve the optimization problem analytically, because the closed-form expressions of ASE and EE are not easily obtained.…”

“…References [18][19][20][21][22] summarized and compared many kinds of point processes and concluded that Poisson point process (PPP) is the most popular, most tractable, and most important one because of its independence property. Therefore, taking advantage of the PPP, we adopt the stochastic geometry theory to analyze the EE in an ultradense HetNet.…”