WCDMA HSDPA Simulations

Possibilities to use WinProp for HSDPA network planning 

General HSDPA aspects

 

As standardized in 3GPP R’5 HSDPA will improve UMTS air interface system performance for the important class of bursty, asymmetric packet data applications. Its target is to increase the peak data rate that can be offered to the mobile data terminals in downlink direction, and on the other hand also to improve cell capacity with an efficient utilization of expensive radio resources.

The benefits from the subscriber point of view will be higher data rates and better QoS improving existing data services and enabling a variety of new mobile applications. From the network operator point of view HSDPA enables a cost effective extension of UMTS networks with increasing capacity demand for high speed mobile data services. It is widely accepted that HSDPA will be a key technology to bring advanced mobile data services to a broad dissemination.

HSDPA in WinProp

 

The main advantages of HSDPA are based on a beneficial consideration of the actual radio conditions of all terminals to be served by one cell in a very dynamic way:

  • Link adaptation with fast channel quality feedback information ensures that modulation (QPSK and 16-QAM) and coding match the varying channel conditions.
  • Fast retransmission of corrupted radio blocks on Node B level reduce packet delay and resource allocation.
  • Advanced MAC layer procedures as C/I based scheduling and channel sharing lead to an increased overall resource efficiency.

Thus it is very clear that the performance of the HSDPA system is closely related to the different radio channels of all mobiles and their bursty traffic characteristics.


Obviously the main application scenarios for HSDPA will be in dense urban and indoor areas with corresponding high traffic demands. Especially for these environments advanced ray-optical propagation models are available in ProMan. These deterministic models can be used for the important description of the radio channels in the HSDPA system simulation.


Especially to exploit the benefits of the 16-QAM modulation (high throughput on good channels) careful network planning is required. Otherwise the probability to use these higher order modulation schemes will be disappointingly small with all its effects on link and system level performance.

System simulations help to evaluate mobile network performance in different environments with different configurations or network layouts. Performance indicators of interest are network capacity, service availability and also service quality from the user point of view. For HSDPA systems ProMan enables CPICH evaluation, a prediction map indicating the maximum expected HSDPA data rate (see below), and also statistical analysis concerning packet delays, page throughput, sector throughput, applied TFRC and others.

HSDPA Features in ProMan

 

The packet service performance is evaluated by the means of a full dynamic system simulation chain. Bursty packet traffic can be generated according to statistical processes and the system tries to transmit this traffic best possible under current conditions. At the receiving side statistics are collected. Some key features implemented in the HSDPA simulator are listed below:

  • freely configurable packet generator (e.g. WWW, FTP)

  • Packet processing (segmentation and concatenation)

  • CPICH evaluation

  • Scheduling (e.g. C/I, priority, round robin)

  • Link Adaptation (configurable)

  • Link Level Interface (importing BLER tables)

  • Fast Retransmission

  • RLC retransmission


HSDPA peak data rate

 

The peak data rate that can be expected in the HSDPA system can be visualized in a map. The peak data rate can only be achieved if resources are assigned exclusively to one mobile at the considered instance of time. It is limited by the mobile capabilities, HSDPA code and power resources, and interference.

The impact of a proper network planning on HSDPA peak data rate can be visualized with the simulation tool. The figure shows the peak data rate for a dense urban micro-cellular HSDPA network layout. The peak data rate is significantly influenced by the network layout (location and tilts of Node B antennas). This impact can be studied and visualized with the simulator.



HSDPA peak data rate

Channel Quality Indicator

 

The channel quality indicator is a measure of the mobile channel which is send regulary from the UE to the Node B. These measurements are used to adapt modulation and coding for the corresponding UE and it can be also used for the scheduling alorithms.


The CQI measurement is implemented in the HSDPA module and the measurement interval as well as the influence of measurement errors can be parameterised. The results can be given in form of maps (see figure) or in a statistical manner as histogram for each cell.



HSDPA CQI map

 

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Publications related to 3G simulations

Comparison/Overview
Static  Sim.
Monte Carlo Sim.
Dynamic Sim.

 

Propagation Models

The important interaction between neighboring cells in terms of interference demands for advanced propagation models depending on the current environment.


AWE Communications provides a variety of propagation models for different scenarios and all these models interact with he network planning module.


Please have a look at our propagation pages.



Application Areas 

The following links provide more information about the usage of the 3G simulation tools for other applications:




Brochure


Brochure with more information about
3G Packet Switched Network Simulatiion