Efficient Location and Paging Area Planning in Future Cellular Systems

Efficient resource utilisation in future cellular systems is partly related to the location update and paging operations, which rely on proper planning of location and paging areas, and the application of efficient paging schemes. Important is the design of low complexity planning algorithms that may enable the system to dynamically adapt to new traffic and mobility conditions. In this paper we define and solve versions of the location and paging area planning problems focusing also on algorithms that are applicable in real-time. Thus, they can be used to adapt location and paging areas to traffic and mobility conditions. Starting from a formal definition and an optimal formulation, we solve efficiently by means of a low complexity heuristic, a general version of the location area planning problem. Regarding paging area planning, we provide a low complexity algorithm, under the assumption that the scheme applied falls within the last interaction based paging (LIBP) category. The results presented, and the low cost and complexity induced by the proposed schemes, indicates that the real-time application of the schemes is feasible.     

Cost reduction in location management using semi‐realtime movement information

This paper introduces a dynamic paging scheme based on the semirealtime movement information of an individual user, which allows a more accurate predication of the user location at the time of paging. In general, a realtime location tracking scheme may require complex control schemes and incur unacceptably high computation and messaging cost. Our proposed approach, namely the velocity paging scheme, relaxes the realtime constraints to semirealtime to provide a good combination of cost reduction and ease of implementation. The proposed velocity paging scheme utilizes semirealtime velocity information, namely velocity classes, of individual mobile terminals and dynamically calculates a paging zone (a list of cells to be paged) for an incoming call. Therefore, the total paging cost can be reduced due to the paging area reduction. Much consideration also has been given to reduce the complexity of the proposed scheme. As a result, it only requires minimal extra overhead and is feasible to implement in current cellular/PCS networks. The velocity paging can be combined with the movementbased registration or other registration schemes. Analytical and simulation results of the velocity paging and movementbased registration combination are provided to demonstrate the cost effectiveness of the scheme under various parameters in comparison with the location area scheme.     

Mobile User Tracking Using A Hybrid Neural Network

In this paper, a novel technique for location prediction of mobile users has been proposed, and a paging technique based on this predicted location is developed. As a mobile user always travels with a destination in mind, the movements of users, are, in general, preplanned, and are highly dependent on the individual characteristics. Hence, neural networks with its learning and generalization ability may act as a suitable tool to predict the location of a terminal provided it is trained appropriately by the personal mobility profile of individual user. For prediction, the performance of a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) network has been studied first. Next, to recognize the inherent clusters in the input data, and to process it accordingly, a hybrid network composed of a self-organizing feature map (SOFM) network followed by a number of MLP networks has been employed. Simulation studies show that the latter performs better for location management. This approach is free from all unrealistic assumptions about the movement of the users. It is applicable to any arbitrary cell architecture. It attempts to reduce the total location management cost and paging delay, in general.Kausik Majumdar Received the B.E. degree in Electronics & Telecommunication from Jadavpur University, Kolkata in 2003. He is presently studying for M.Tech. degree in Optoelectronics & Optical Communication from IIT Delhi. Research interests include optical communication, computer networks, semiconductor devices and neural networks.Nabanita Das received the B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Physics in 1976, B.Tech. in Radio Physics and Electronics in 1979, from the University of Calcutta, the M.E. degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering in 1981, and Ph.D in Computer Science in 1992, from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. Since 1986, she has been on the faculty of the Advanced Computing and Microelectronics unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. She visited the department of Mathematik and Informatik, University of Paderborn, Germany, under INSA scientists exchange programme. She has co-authored many papers published in International journals of repute. She has acted as the co-guest Editor of the special issue on Resource Management in mobile, ad hoc and sensor networks of Microprocessors and Microsystems, by Elsevier. She has acted as program chair of International workshop on distributed computing, IWDC 2004, and also as co-editor of the proceedings to be published as LNCS by Springer. Her research interests include parallel processing, interconnection networks, wireless communication and mobile computing. She is a senior member of IEEE.     

MA‐WATM: A new approach towards an adaptive wireless ATM network

In a cellular multimedia network like wireless ATM (WATM), self control seems primordial. Our new approach is based on the application of DAI (distributed artificial intelligence) techniques in order to build a selfadaptive network within random nonuniform traffic conditions. Attempting to achieve a high network capacity in terms of resource allocation and air interface BER (bit error rate), we propose to apply intelligent agent features to enhance the architecture of WATM systems. In fact, the intelligent platform MAWATM (multiagent wireless ATM) is used to provide a flexible integration of the multiagent technique in wireless entities, BSs (base stations), MSs (mobile stations) and MSCs (mobile switching centers). Two applications are investigated and explored by simulations in order to bear out the feasibility of the multiagent approach.     

Performance comparison of battery power consumption in wireless multiple access protocols

Energy efficiency is an important issue in mobile wireless networks since the battery life of mobile terminals is limited. Conservation of battery power has been addressed using many techniques such as variable speed CPUs, flash memory, disk spindowns, and so on. We believe that energy conservation should be an important factor in the design of networking protocols for mobile wireless networks. In particular, this paper addresses energy efficiency in medium access control (MAC) protocols for wireless networks. The paper develops a framework to study the energy consumption of a MAC protocol from the transceiver usage perspective. This framework is then applied to compare the performance of a set of protocols that includes IEEE 802.11, ECMAC, PRMA, MDRTDMA, and DQRUMA*. The performance metrics considered are transmitter and receiver usage times for packet transmission and reception. The time estimates are then combined with power ratings for a Proxim RangeLAN2 radio card to obtain an estimate of the energy consumed for MAC related activities. The analysis here shows that protocols that aim to reduce the number of contentions perform better from an energy consumption perspective. The receiver usage time, however, tends to be higher for protocols that require the mobile to sense the medium before attempting transmission. The paper also provides a set of principles that could be applied when designing access protocols for wireless networks.*ECMAC: energyconserving MAC. PRMA: packet reservation multiple access. MDRTDMA: multiservices dynamic reservation TDMA. DQRUMA: distributedqueuing request update multiple access.     

Mobile ATM buffer capacity analysis

This paper extends a stochastic theory for buffer fill distribution for multiple on and off sources to a mobile environment. Queue fill distribution is described by a set of differential equations assuming sources alternate asynchronously between exponentially distributed periods in on and off states. This paper includes the probabilities that mobile sources have links to a given queue. The sources represent mobile user nodes, and the queue represents the capacity of a switch. This paper presents a method of analysis which uses mobile parameters such as speed, call rates per unit area, cell area, and call duration and determines queue fill distribution at the ATM cell level. The analytic results are compared with simulation results.This paper is partially funded by ARPA contract number J-FBI-94-223.The Mathematica code for this paper can be found on http://www.tisl.ukans.edu/sbush.     

A class of mobile motion prediction algorithms for wireless mobile computing and communications

This paper describes a class of novel mobile motion prediction algorithms for supporting global mobile data accessing. Traditionally, mobility and routing management includes functions to passively keep track of the location of the users/terminals and to maintain connections to the terminals belonging to the system. To maintain uninterrupted high-quality service for distributed applications, it is important that a mobile system be more intelligent and can anticipate the change of the location of its user. We propose an aggressive mobility and routing management scheme, called predictive mobility management. A class of mobile motion prediction algorithms predicts the future location of a mobile user according to the user's movement history, i.e., previous movement patterns. By combining this scheme with mobility agent functions, the service and user routing data are actually pre-connected and pre-assigned at the locations to which the user is moving. Thus, the user can immediately receive service or data with virtually the same efficiency as at the previous location, i.e., without encountering a large data structure handover delay before service or data is available.     

A cost effective distributed location management strategy for wireless networks

The mobility feature of mobile stations (MSs) imposes a large burden on network traffic control as a result of location management. Design issues of location management include MS registration (updating) and call setup (paging). Previous approaches introduced several network topologies for updating and paging procedures, but most of them focused on a single problem: either updating optimization or paging optimization. In this paper, we design and integrate two mechanisms, distributed temporary location caches (TLCs) and distributed home location registers (HLRs), to reduce database access delay and to decrease network signaling traffic in both updating and paging for low power, low tier micro cellular systems. By using TLCs, our approach can improve the performance of updating and paging in comparison with previous approaches. Experimental results based on our analytic model show that our location management procedures have lower HLR access rate, lower registration cost, and lower call setup cost than other approaches.     

Floor acquisition multiple access (FAMA) in single‐channel wireless networks

The FAMANCS protocol is introduced for wireless LANs and adhoc networks that are based on a single channel and asynchronous transmissions (i.e., no time slotting). FAMANCS (for floor acquisition multiple access with nonpersistent carrier sensing) guarantees that a single sender is able to send data packets free of collisions to a given receiver at any given time. FAMANCS is based on a threeway handshake between sender and receiver in which the sender uses nonpersistent carrier sensing to transmit a requesttosend (RTS) and the receiver sends a cleartosend (CTS) that lasts much longer than the RTS to serve as a busy tone that forces all hidden nodes to back off long enough to allow a collisionfree data packet to arrive at the receiver. It is shown that carrier sensing is needed to support collisionfree transmissions in the presence of hidden terminals when nodes transmit RTSs asynchronously. The throughput of FAMANCS is analyzed for singlechannel networks with and without hidden terminals; the analysis shows that FAMANCS performs better than ALOHA, CSMA, and all prior proposals based on collision avoidance dialogues (e.g., MACA, MACAW, and IEEE 802.11 DFWMAC) in the presence of hidden terminals. Simulation experiments are used to confirm the analytical results.     

A selective location update strategy for PCS users

A new location update strategy for personal communication services (PCS) networks and its implementation using a genetic algorithm are proposed. Most of the practical cellular mobile systems partition a geographical region into location areas (LAs) and users are made to update on entering a new LA. The main drawback of this scheme is that it does not consider the individual user mobility and call arrival patterns. Combining these factors with the LAbased approach, we propose an optimal update strategy which determines whether or not a user should update in each LA, and minimizes the average location management cost derived from a userspecific mobility model and call generation pattern. The location management cost optimization problem is also elegantly solved using a genetic algorithm. Detailed simulation experiments are conducted to capture the effects of mobility and callarrival patterns on the location update strategy. The conclusion from this work is that skipping location updates in certain LAs leads to the minimization of the overall location management cost for a user with a specific mobility pattern and even with moderately high call arrival rate.     

NETMAN: The design of a collaborative wearable computer system

This paper presents a wearable groupware system designed to enhance the communication and cooperation of highly mobile network technicians. It provides technicians in the field with the capabilities for realtime audioconferencing, transmission of video images back to the office, and contextsensitive access to a shared notebook. An infrared locationtracking device allows for the automatic retrieval of notebook entries depending on the user's current location.     

Priority handoff analysis

Handoff will become an increasingly important issue in mobile phone communications, especially in microcellular systems with the increase of handoff traffic between cells. Many approaches have been proposed for handoff analysis. In a previous analysis, it was assumed that the probability density function (pdf) of the speeds of cell-crossing terminals is the same as the pdf of the speeds of all terminals. In contrast to this assumption, we argue that both pdf's are unequal. The pdf of the speeds of cell-crossing terminals is given by a biased sampling formula. This boundary condition is used in our study and improves the accuracy of performance measures in handoff analysis. In previous work, a priority handoff system which has dedicated channels for handoff calls and uses a blocked call cleared (BCC) policy has been analyzed. In this paper, we use a different approach in performance analysis. The proposed approach has low computational complexity and high accuracy.The author was a visiting scholar at WINLAB while this work was completed.     

Demand re‐registration for PCS database restoration

In a Personal Communications Services (PCS) network, mobility databases such as Home Location Register (HLR) and Visitor Location Register (VLR) are utilized to support mobility management for Mobile Stations (MSs). If the location databases fail, the location information loss or corruption will seriously degrade the service offered to the subscribers. In this paper, we propose a new VLR failure recovery scheme called demand reregistration. In this scheme, the VLR broadcasts a reregistration request to all MSs after the VLR failure. When an MS receives the reregistration request, it sends a registration message to the VLR to recover the location record. Since all MSs will reregister after receiving the broadcasting request, traffic jam (and thus collisions) may occur. If a collision occurs, then the involved MSs must resend the registration messages. This paper studies the performance of demand reregistration by investigating how effectively the reregistration can recover the location record for an MS before the first MS call termination occurs. Our results indicate that demand reregistration can effectively recover VLR failure.     

Surface-Photovoltage Measurement of Volume Electron Lifetime in p-Si Wafers

The problem of estimating the volume lifetime _v of minority carriers in p-type Si wafers by surface-photovoltage measurements is addressed. An experiment is conducted in order to ascertain the relationship between measured and actual values of _v. The measurements are carried out on circular specimens whose thickness is reduced from about 2000 to 450 m by stepwise etching. The specimens are cut from a Czochralski-grown rod, their actual values of _v ranging from 10 to 300 s. The surface recombination rate of minority carriers is determined on both sides of the specimens covered with native oxide, the sides differing in surface finish. The results of the experiment allow one to determine _v up to about 400 s.     

A scalable wireless virtual LAN

This paper presents a Wireless Virtual Local Area Network (WVLAN) to support mobility in IPoverATM local area networks. Mobility is handled by a joint ATMlayer handoff for connection rerouting and MAClayer handoff for location tracking, such that the effects of mobility are localized and transparent to the higherlayer protocols. Different functions, such as Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), mobile location, and ATM connection admission are combined to reduce protocol overhead and frontend delay for connectionless packet transmission in connectionoriented ATM networks. The proposed WVLAN, through the use of ATM technology, provides a scalable wireless virtual LAN solution for IP mobile hosts.     

A framework for delivering multicast messages in networks with mobile hosts

To accommodatemobile hosts (MHs) within existing data networks, the static network is augmented with mobile support stations (MSSs) that communicate directly with MHs, usually via wireless links. Connectivity of the overall network changes dynamically as MHs connect to the static network from different locations (MSSs) at different times. Compared to their desktop counterparts, mobile hosts face a new set of constraints namely, low bandwith of the wireless links, tight constraints on power consumption and a significantly lower computing capability. Thus, even without considering failures, integration of mobile computer within existing networks pose a new set of problems. In this paper, we look at the problems associated with delivering multicast meassages to mobile hosts. First, we identify how a mobile host's ability to connect to different MSSs at different times, affects delivery of multicast messages and present schemes to deliver multicast messages to MHs fromatleast-one location, fromatmost-one location, and fromexactly-one location. Next, we introduce multicast groups of mobile hosts wherein each multicast group is associated with a host view, a set of MSSs representing theaggregate location information of the group. A host-view membership algorithm is then presented and combined with the multicast scheme for exactly-once delivery. As a result, to deliver a multicast message to a specified group, copies of the message need be propagated only to the MSSs in the group's host-view.This work was done while the author was a graduate student at Rutgers University.This research work was supported in part by ARPA under contract number DAAH04-95-1-0596, NSF grant numbers CCR 95-09620, IRIS 95-09816 and sponsors of WINLAB.     

A signaling and control architecture for mobility support in wireless ATM networks

This paper presents a signaling and control architecture for mobility support in a wireless ATM network that provides integrated broadband services to mobile terminals. A system level protocol architecture for a wireless ATM network is outlined. The proposed protocol stack incorporates new wireless link MAC, DLC and wireless control sublayers, together with appropriate mobility extensions to the existing ATM network control layer. Wireless control and ATM signaling capabilities required for mobility support are discussed, and preliminary solutions are given for selected major functions. Potential extensions to standard Q.2931 ATM signaling are proposed to support handoff and service parameter/QoS renegotiation required for mobility. An associated wireless control protocol for supporting terminal migration, resource allocation, and handoff is discussed. Preliminary experimental results are given which validate the proposed handoff control protocol on an ATM network testbed.     

Design and Implementation of a Low Complexity VLSI Turbo-Code Decoder Architecture for Low Energy Mobile Wireless Communications

Channel coding is commonly incorporated to obtain sufficient reception quality in wireless mobile communications transceiver to counter channel degradation due to intersymbol interference, multipath dispersion, and thermal noise induced by electronic circuit devices. For low energy mobile wireless communications, it is highly desirable to incorporate a decoder which has a very low power consumption while achieving a high coding gain. In this paper, a sub-optimal low-complexity multi-stage pipeline decoder architecture for a powerful channel coding technique known as turbo-code is presented. The presented architecture avoids complex operations such as exponent and logarithmic computations. The turbo-code decoding algorithm is reformulated for an efficient VLSI implementation. Furthermore, the communication channel statistic estimation process has been completely eliminated. The architecture has been designed and implemented with the 0.6 m CMOS standard cell technology using Epoch computer aided design tool. The performance and the circuit complexity of the turbo-code decoder are evaluated and compared with the other types of well-known decoders. The power consumption of the low-complexity turbo-code decoder is comparable to that of the conventional convolutional-code decoder. However, the low-complexity turbo-code decoder has a significant coding gain over the conventional convolutional-code decoders and it is well suited for very low power applications.     

A New Approach to Realize Variable Gain Amplifiers

A new methodology to develop variable gain amplifiers is developed. The methodology is based on a feedback loop to generate the exponential characteristic, which is required for VGA circuits. The proposed idea is very suitable for applications that require very low power consumption, and as an application, a new current mode variable gain amplifier will be shown. The gain is adapted via a current signal ranges from –7.5 A to +6.5 A. Pspice simulations based on Mietec 0.5 m CMOS technology show that the gain can be varied over a range of 29.5 dB, with bandwidth of 3 MHz at maximum gain value. The circuit operates between ±1.5 V and consumes an average amount of power less than 495 W.     

An efficient multicast protocol for PCS networks

In a Personal Communication Services (PCS) network, mobile hosts communicate with other mobile hosts through base stations on a wired (static) network. The mobile hosts connect to different base stations through wireless links and the base stations to which mobile hosts are connected change depending on the current location of the mobile hosts. In this environment, the problem of efficiently delivering a multicast message from one mobile host to a group of other mobile hosts becomes challenging. In this paper, we present a multicast protocol that delivers multicast messages from a mobile host to a group of other mobile hosts without flooding the wired network. The multicast protocol is built on top of a user location strategy that should follow one of the three models of user location described in the paper. The basic multicast protocol proposed guarantees exactlyonce message delivery to all mobile hosts in the multicast group and also ensures that multicast messages are delivered in FIFO order from the point of view of the base station that originates the multicast message (referred to as BSFIFO). More importantly, an extension of the basic protocol is provided that, unlike earlier work, delivers multicast messages in FIFO order from the point of view of the mobile host that initiates the multicast message (referred to as MHFIFO). The modifications to be made to the multicast protocol to accommodate each of the three models of user location is also described.