Base Station Antenna Tilt for Load Balancing and Potential use in Self-Optimizating Networks

• The coverage shaping and interference reduction ability of base station antenna tilt are important tools in cellular network optimization. Through tilt changes, the coverage area of a serving cell may also be either reduced or expanded. Therefore, antenna tilt has the potential to be used for load balancing purposes. With the introduction of Self-Organizing Networks (SON) in the mobile communications, this parameter may now be used also in the context of self-optimization, to address the common situation where traffic has an uneven spatial distribution between serving cells. This work gives an overview of base station antennas and antenna tilt. Simulations are performed in order to determine the impact of tilt changes when used for load balancing. The effect of tilt angle, vertical beam width and handover offset are analyzed also. The results show that there is a direct relation between these parameters and the number of users that can be shifted towards neighboring cells. In conclusion, it is found that using antennas with narrow vertical beam widths together with small hand over offsets is an efficient way of performing load balancing but results also in high SIR. Although antenna tilt load balancing can improve the Grade of Service (GoS) in a congested cell, it will also influence the user bit rates and total cell throughput for both the congested cell and the neighbors.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Kommunikationssystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Communication Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

SRA - ICT

SRA - Informations- och kommunikationsteknik

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