English

Abstract

Dynamic channel assignment (DCA) has been a topic of intense research for many years, and a variety of DCA algorithms have been proposed. Nonetheless, some important issues have been neglected because of the complexity involved in their study. In particular, the impact of user motion on the performance of DCA systems has not received enough attention. In this paper, we quantify the impact of motion on the capacity and cost—in terms of average number of reassignments per call—of a variety of representative distributed fixed-power DCA algorithms. A novel adaptive algorithm especially suited for mobility environments is proposed, which achieves high capacity while controlling the reassignment rate. We also prove that most of this capacity can be effectively realized with a reduced number of radio transceivers per base station. Finally, we evaluate the degradation associated with the use of estimates of local-mean signal and interference levels—obtained by averaging instantaneous measurements—in-stead of the actual local-mean values.