QoS performance of LTE networks with network coding

Nowadays the widespread use of variety of smart phones and tablets with wide range of multimedia application support is driving more data service users towards full mobility causing a rapid increase in demand for mobile data rates. These new devices and multimedia applications require high data rates and reduced latency to provide better Quality of Service (QoS). To address these requirements the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) introduces Long-Term Evolution (LTE) with a capability to move towards Fourth Generation (4G) wireless systems. It is designed to be a high data rate and low latency system that aiming to support different types of services. As the demand for massive multimedia delivery over LTE network increases, a novel transmission techniques such as Network Coding (NC) are needed. In this thesis work we present the QoS performance analysis of downlink LTE using an open source simulation libraries, Network Simulator-3 (ns-3) and Kodo. The main performance parameters considered are the throughput, packet delay, spectral efficiency, capacity and coverage. Factors affecting the overall performance such as the fading, shadowing, buildings, User Equipment (UE) speed, UE-Evolved Node B (eNB) distance and traffic load are considered. The scenario used for the analysis includes multiple UEs and eNBs for different system antennas and system bandwidths. Moreover, Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) coding scheme is implemented in LTE networks for a simple scenario composed of a single UE, eNB and remote host to assess the usefulness of NC. The results obtained shows the impact of different factors on the system QoS performance. The throughput, delay, spectral efficiency, capacity and coverage performances are evaluated and discussed for different system bandwidth and different system antennas with varying transmission power. In addition, network coding has been shown to improve the throughput at a cost of higher packet delay. Moreover, alternatives ways of improving the throughput and different variants of NC are discussed. Since the results are based on both theory and experiments, the analysis and discussions made could be considered as a start point in dimensioning an LTE commercial networks. Suggestions for future work and a draft of a conference paper are also given.

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