Radio Resource Management in WiMAX

Today, different types of cellular networks are actively working on the radio links. For instance, the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is being used in nearly two hundred countries and currently it has around two and half billion users all over the world. Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is currently deployed in many countries and it is providing increased data rates, coverage and mobility as compared to GSM. Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) are very famous when we have a small area and none real time services. Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a new technology and it is in deployment phase. In all these cellular technologies, we have very limited recourses and we have to make best use of them by proper management. Radio Resource Management (RRM) is a control mechanism for the overall system which is being used to manage radio resources in the air interface inside a cellular network. The main objective is to utilize the available spectral resources as efficiently as possible. Our aim is to use them in the best possible way to maximize the performance and spectral efficiency in such a way that we have maximum number of users in our network and Quality of Service (QoS) is up to the mark. In a cellular communication system, a service area or a geographical region is divided into a number of cells and each cell is served by an infrastructure element called the base station which works through a radio interface. The frequency license fees, real estate, distribution network and maintenance are the issues which dominates the cost for deploying a cellular network. Management of radio related resources is a critical design component in cellular communications. In RRM, we control parameters like Radio Frequency (RF) planning, link budgeting, modulation schemes, channel access schemes etc. RF planning includes cell planning, coverage of the network and capacity of the network. Our main focus in this thesis will be on cell planning and link budgeting and we will discuss them in context of a WiMAX network