Virtual cellular networks for non-uniformly distributed base stations

Abstract

Cellular communications have experienced an explosive growth recently. In order to accommodate more subscribers, cells need to be split into smaller ones to make more efficient use of the limited frequency spectrum allocation. As a result the cell size in one area may be different from the cell size in another area. For example, in a well-populated city, the cell size may be smaller than the cell size in a rural area. Although a lot of research on cellular networks has been reported in the literature, they all assume a cellular network with a uniform cell size. To study a cellular network with non-uniform cell sizes, one approach is to design a virtual cellular network with a uniform cell size such that each virtual cell contains at most one base station. This paper has proposed a novel concept referred to as projection locus that can be used to construct a virtual cellular network for non-uniformly distributed base stations. The constructed virtual cellular network can be in the form of mesh or honeycomb. Both forms of virtual cellular networks are optimal in the sense that their corresponding uniform cell sizes reach the largest possible.