Cellular Concept and Frequency

Reuse

Prakasam P
School of Electronics Engineering
Vellore Institute of Technology
Vellore
 Introduction
 Design objective of early mobile radio
systems
◦ To achieve a large coverage area by using a
single, high powered transmitter with an
antenna mounted on a tall tower.
 While this approach achieved very good
coverage,
◦ Problem?
 It was impossible to reuse those same frequencies throughout
the system, since any attempts to achieve frequency reuse
would result in interference.

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Introduction – Cellular Concept
 Major breakthrough in solving the problem of spectral congestion and user
capacity.
◦ It offered very high capacity in a limited spectrum allocation without any
major technological changes.
 System level idea which calls for replacing a single, high power
transmitter(large cell) with many low power transmitters (small cells), each
providing coverage to only a small portion of the service area.
 Each base station is allocated a portion of the total number of channels
available to the entire system, and
 Nearby base stations are assigned different groups of channels so that all the
available channels are assigned to a relatively small number of neighboring
base stations.
◦ Neighboring base stations are assigned different groups of channels
 So that the interference between base stations is minimized.

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Introduction – Cellular Concept
 By systematically spacing base stations and their channel groups, the
available channels are distributed throughout the geographic region and
may be reused as many times as necessary,
◦ Interference between co-channel stations is kept below acceptable levels.
 As the demand for service increases,
◦ The number of base stations may be increased, thereby providing additional
radio capacity with no additional increase in radio spectrum.
 This fundamental principle is the foundation for all modern wireless
communication systems,
◦ Enables a fixed number of channels to serve an arbitrarily large number of
subscribers by reusing the channels throughout the coverage region.
 The cellular concept allows every piece of subscriber equipment within
a country or continent to be manufactured with the same set of
channels
◦ Any mobile may be used anywhere within the region.

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 Frequency Reuse
 Cellular radio systems rely on an intelligent allocation and reuse of
channels throughout a coverage region.
 Each cellular base station is allocated a group of radio channels to be used
within a small geographic area called a cell.
 Base stations in adjacent cells are assigned channel groups which contain
completely different channels than neighboring cells.
 The base station antennas are designed to achieve the desired coverage
within the particular cell.
 By limiting the coverage area within the boundaries of a cell,
◦ The same group of channels may be used to cover different cells that are separated
from one another by distances large enough to keep interference levels within
tolerable limits.
 The design process of selecting and allocating channel groups for all of the
cellular base stations within a system is called frequency reuse or
frequency planning

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 Frequency Reuse
 The hexagonal cell shape shown in Figure is conceptual
and is a simplistic model of the radio coverage for each
base station
• But it has been universally adopted since the hexagon permits
easy and manageable analysis of a cellular system.
 Cells with the same letter use the
same set of frequencies.
 A cell cluster is outlined in bold and
replicated over the coverage area.
 In this example, the cluster size, N, is
equal to seven, and the frequency
reuse factor is 1/7
◦ Since each cell contains one-seventh
of the total number of available
channels.
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 Frequency Reuse
 The actual radio coverage of a cell is known as the footprint
◦ Determined from field measurements or propagation prediction
models.
 Although the real footprint is amorphous in nature, a regular cell shape is
needed for systematic system design and adaptation for future growth.
◦ While it might seem natural to choose a circle to represent the
coverage area of a base station, adjacent circles can not be overlaid
upon a map without leaving gaps or creating overlapping regions.
 When considering geometric shapes which cover an entire region without
overlap and with equal area, there are three sensible choices:
◦ a square;
◦ an equilateral triangle; and
◦ a hexagon.

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 Frequency Reuse
 A cell must be designed to serve the weakest mobiles within the footprint, and
these are typically located at the edge of the cell.
 For a given distance between the center of a polygon and its farthest perimeter
points, the hexagon has the largest area of the three.
 By using the hexagon geometry the fewest number of cells can cover a geographic
region, and
◦ The hexagon closely approximates a circular radiation pattern which would
occur for an omni-directional base station antenna and free space propagation.
 Actual cellular footprint is determined by the contour in which a given transmitter
serves the mobiles successfully.
 When using hexagons to model coverage areas,
◦ Base station transmitters are depicted as either being in the center of the cell
(center-excited cells) or on three of the six cell vertices (edge-excited cells).
 Omni-directional antennas are used in center-excited cells
 Sectored directional antennas are used in corner-excited cells.
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 Frequency Reuse
 Practical considerations usually do not allow base stations to
be placed exactly as they appear in the hexagonal layout.
◦ Most system designs permit a base station to be positioned up
to one-fourth the cell radius away from the ideal location.
 To understand the frequency reuse concept,
◦ Consider a cellular system which has a total of S duplex channels
available for use.
◦ If each cell is allocated a group of k channels (k < S), and if the S
channels are divided among N cells into unique and disjoint
channel groups which each have the same number of channels
◦ The total number of available radio channels can be expressed as
S = kN

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 Frequency Reuse
 The N cells which collectively use the complete set of available
frequencies is called a cluster.
 If a cluster is replicated M times within the system, the total number
of duplex channels, C, can be used as a measure of capacity and is
given by
C = MkN = MS
◦ From the above equation, the capacity of a cellular system is directly
proportional to the number of times a cluster is replicated in a fixed
service area.
 The factor N is called the cluster size and is typically equal to 4, 7, or
12.
 If the cluster size N is reduced while the cell size is kept constant,
◦ More clusters are required to cover a given area
 More capacity is achieved.

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 Frequency Reuse
 A large cluster size indicates that
◦ The ratio between the cell radius and the distance between co-
channel cells is large.
 Conversely, a small cluster size indicates that
◦ Co-channel cells are located much closer together.
 The value for N is a function of how much interference a
mobile or base station can tolerate while maintaining a
sufficient quality of communications.
 From a design viewpoint, the smallest possible value of N is
desirable in order to maximize capacity over a given
coverage area.
 The frequency reuse factor of a cellular system is given by
1/N
◦ Since each cell within a cluster is only assigned 1/N of the total
available channels in the system.

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 Frequency Reuse
 Due to the fact that the hexagonal geometry has exactly six
equidistant neighbors
◦ The lines joining the centers of any cell and each of its neighbors are
separated by multiples of 60 degrees, there are only certain cluster sizes
and cell layouts which are possible.
 In order to connect without gaps between adjacent cells
◦ The geometry of hexagons is such that the number of cells per cluster, N,
can only have values which satisfy the below equation
N=i2+ij+j2
 where i and j are non-negative integers.
 To find the nearest co-channel neighbors of a particular cell, one
must do the following:
◦ Move i cells along any chain of hexagons and then
◦ Turn 60 degrees counter-clockwise and move j cells.

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 Frequency Reuse

 Method of locating co-channel cells in a cellular system.

 In this example, N = 19
 i.e., i = 3, j = 2
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