An Analysis of User Mobility in Cellular Networks

Abstract

User mobility impacts the performance of cellular networks. However, there is a lack of results on this problem because of the difficulty of the analysis. The existing results are limited to handover rate and mean path length that a user is associated with the same base station. In this paper, we derive the probability distribution function of the path length that a user will be associated with the same base station. It is assumed that the user travels along a straight path and it is associated to the nearest base station. We make the stochastic geometry assumption that the base stations are distributed over the area according to a Poisson point process. We provide simulation results as further evidence that the analysis is correct. The results of this paper may be useful in the design of cellular networks.