System analysis and performance metrics

In this book, system-level performance results based on comprehensive system simulations of cellular networks are provided. An example of the cellular layout used for system simulation is shown in Figure A.1. This is a typical 19-site, 57-cell system using a hexagonal grid. In this case, a cell is viewed as a sector of the physical site. However, in LTE each cell is treated as an independent eNB. The spacing between each site and the next is dependent on the deployment scenario. For example, in urban micro-cell deployment, the inter-site distance is 200 m. Users are dropped randomly into the simulation space. For instance, in urban micro-cell deployment, 570 users are randomly dropped. After the users have been dropped, long-term radio characteristics such as pathloss and shadowing are calculated. Users are then assigned to the cell using the minimum pathloss as the cell-selection criterion. For the urban micro-cell example, on average, approximately 10 users will be associated with each cell.