Distributed radio access technology selection for adaptive networks in high-speed, B3G infrastructures

Wireless systems migrate towards the era of ‘Beyond the 3rd Generation’ (B3G). A fundamental facilitator of this vision is the evolution of high speed, adaptive networks, needed for better handling the offered demand and improving resource utilization. Adaptive networks dynamically select their configuration, in order to optimally adapt to the changing environment requirements and conditions. This paper presents optimization functionality that can be used to support network adaptability (cognition-reconfigurability) in a B3G context. The paper starts from the business case that justifies the need for placing research onto adaptive networks and then continues with the management functionality for (re)configuration decisions, which is targeted to the dynamic selection of the appropriate radio access technologies (RATs). RAT selection is modelled through an optimization problem called (RAT, Demand and QoS-Assignment problem—RDQ-A), the solution of which assigns in a distributed manner the available RATs to adaptive Base Station transceivers and the demand (users) to these transceivers and to QoS levels, respectively. The RDQ-A optimization problem is decoupled in several sub-problems and is implemented in phases corresponding to the aforementioned assignments, while efficient custom greedy algorithms are mobilized in each phase for obtaining the optimum assignment. Finally, indicative results from the application of the proposed functionality to a simulated network are presented. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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