Resource allocation in cellular communication systems

The demand for mobile communication services is fast growing and requires an efficient ulilization of the resources involved, primarily the allocated frequency band. Two classes of problems are dealt with: channel allocation and traffic allocation. In cellular systems based on FDMA the key issue is the reuse of frequencies. Due to various restrictions the allocation of channels is an NP-complete problem which has been dealt with by heuristic algorithms, eg. simulated annealing. The configuration may include umbrella cells. From a traffic point of view overlapping of cells and hierarchical cell structures with micro and macro cells add to the statistical multiplexing advantages and can be exploited to optimize the carried traffic. Algorithms and software have been developed for both problems.