Performability analysis of multi-service call admission control schemes in LTE networks

Abstract

Two important Quality-of-Service (QoS) measures for cellular networks are the fractions of New Calls (NCs) and Handoff Calls (HCs). These types of calls are usually blocked or dropped for two reasons: radio channels are occupied (performance reason) or failure of radio channels (availability reason). Call Admission Control (CAC) is a technique that accepts or rejects user requests in a network. This paper proposes two new CAC schemes for Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks supporting two classes of services (Real-Time (RT) and Non-Real-Time (NRT)). The proposed CAC schemes are composites, meaning that they consider performance changes associated with the failure and recovery of radio channels. We use the Probabilistic Model Checking (PMC) to perform a comparative analysis between the performability measures (combination of performance and availability measures) of the proposed composite CAC schemes and an existing pure performance model. First, we model the composite CAC schemes with multidimensional Continuous Time Markov Chain (CTMC). Then, we specify QoS requirements through the CTMC using the Continuous-time Stochastic Logic (CSL). Finally, we quantify the performability measures of the composite CAC schemes by checking CSL steady-state, transient, and path formulas using the PRISM model checker.