Non-Stationary Traffic Conditions in Transient Flow Level Models for Cellular Networks

Inhalt:
Most of today’s advanced cellular network models consider time-stationary behavior neglecting that networks are frequently subjected to transient effects due to, e.g., fluctuating traffic demand. In addition, modern concepts such as small cells and heterogeneous networks might introduce short-term dynamics that have to be taken into account as well. For instance, microcells can be switched on and off dynamically in order to adapt the energy consumption and frequency usage to varying input loads. Supplementary to existing steady-state flow level models, we present techniques enabling a transient analysis of system startup and non-stationary traffic scenarios. In detail, we propose analytical and numerical techniques based on queueing theory and differential equations to model the transient behavior of interference-coupled cellular networks exactly, and suggest further approximations for the same. Numerical studies reveal the need for transient models and show that the approximation techniques offer a reasonable trade-off between accuracy and fast computation.