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Troubleshooting of 3G LTE Mobility Parameters
Troubleshooting of 3G LTE Mobility Parameters
Abstract—This paper presents a new troubleshooting method- Once the problem has been identified, there can be various
ology for 3G Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks based on ways which can be used to improve the performance of
a closed-form expression between Radio Resource Management the cells that exhibit a degraded performance. The steered
(RRM) and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) parameters, using
statistical learning. This methodology aims at locally optimising optimization technique is one such method. It has been used
the RRM parameters of the cells with poor performance in in [6] to identify the most coupled eNodeBs (eNBs), denoted
an iterative manner. The optimization engine uses the closed- as influence sets, with the problematic cell, based on the
form relationship to calculate the optimized RRM parameters for interference matrix approach. Indeed, knowledge of the inter-
these cells. The main advantage of this methodolgy is the small action between any couple of stations in terms of interference,
number of iterations required to achieve convergence and the
QoS objective. A troubleshooting application scenario involving macrodiversity and load difference allows one to accurately
mobility in LTE networks is considered. Numerical simulations identify sectors with poor performance on the one hand and
illustrate the benefits of our proposed scheme. to suggest corrective measures on the other hand [7].
Keywords: Statistical learning, linear regression, automated In this paper, we use a statistical approach based on data
troubleshooting, handover margin, LTE. measurement to construct closed-form expressions, which we
denote by the model, between the Radio Resource Manage-
I. I NTRODUCTION ment (RRM) parameters and a selected set of KPIs. Owing to
The release 8 of the Third Generation Partnership Project the linearity of the model [8], Linear Regression (LR) will be
(3GPP) specifications known as Long Term Evolution (LTE) used to construct it. Optimization techniques, such as linear
has been standardized in March 2009 [1]. LTE is a set of programming or combinatorial heuristics, can then be used
enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications to solve the optimization problem and determine the optimal
System (UMTS); the resulting architecture is called Evolved RRM parameters that best fit the KPI objectives.
Packet System (EPS) and comprises Evolved Universal Ter- The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section
restrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) on the access side II describes the proposed troubleshooting scheme block dia-
and Evolved Packet Core (EPC) on the core side. gram. Section III presents the details of the system model for
With the growth of mobile wireless networks, the trou- mobility in 3G LTE. Section IV contains the troubleshooting
bleshooting costs of the network are increasing and the algorithm description. Section V shows the 3G LTE simulation
growing competition requires the efficient utilisation of the scenario and results. Section VI eventually concludes the
network resources and personnel. The three main tasks of paper.
troubleshooting are: detecting problems, identifying the cause
(diagnosis) and solving the problems [2]. Troubleshooting II. T ROUBLESHOOTING B LOCK D IAGRAM
may be manual, involving human experts that detect alarms It is assumed that the initial two steps of the troubleshooting
and monitor the statistical performance of the network, or process, namely fault detection and fault diagnosis, have
automated wherein these tasks are carried out by specialized already been done. Let’s suppose that the diagnosis system
modules in the Operation and Management Center (OMC). determined that the fault cause was a RRM parameter whose
Bayesian Network is an efficient way to represent the value has degraded the performance of the eNB or the first
relationship between causes and symptoms and can thus be tier neighbours of the eNB. Under these circumstances, the
advantageously used for the diagnosis in automated trou- proposed system uses a local optimization process in order
bleshooting. It has been studied in [3] and [4] for the GSM to find the RRM parameter value that solves the problems.
network. Therein, a diagnostic model is constructed from Thus, the troubleshooting process should be accomplished in
relevant data obtained from the network: Key Performance a minimum number of iterations.
Indicators (KPIs), alarms and configuration data. A Bayesian- The block diagram of the automated troubleshooting, also
based diagnosis has been studied for the UMTS network in termed healing, is shown in Figure 1.
[5] It is composed of four blocks:
where BCR and DCR are the mean BCR and mean DCR
of T1 eNBs, ωt is the weight given to KPI t, denoted
as KP It and HMt is the HM value corresponding to the
maximum allowable threshold for KP It , determined using
the relationship:
KP It = ft (HMi ) (4)
where ft is obtained using LR on vector Pk consisting of k Figure 2. The network diagram of the simulated system
data points. The kth data point pk is given as:
pk = (HMi , BCRc , DCRc , BCR, DCR)k (5) We consider downlink transmissions. The simulation pa-
rameters are listed in Table I. A MATLAB LTE simulator
described in [11] has been used.
Now according to the requirements in [9], the initial number
of data points necessary to obtain regression coefficients must Parameters Settings
be two or greater. The initial number of data points, before System bandwidth 5MHz
applying LR and consequently optimization, is chosen as three. Cell layout 19 eNBs, single sector
Maximum eNB transmit power 32 dBm
One extra data point (more than the minimum required data Inter-site distance 1.5 to 2 KM
points) is chosen to compensate the effect of errors in the Subcarrier spacing 15 kHz
KPIs. The smaller the number of points, the more sensitive PRBs per eNB 15
Path loss L=128.1 + 37.6 log10 (R), R in kilo-
the regression is to errors. Furthermore, a badly estimated meters
initial model of ft can cause the optimization problem to Thermal noise density -173 dBm/Hz
be erroneous and the new points found by the optimization Shadowing standard deviation 6 dB
Traffic model FTP
module to get stuck in a non-optimal region. File size 5700 Kbits
The complete troubleshooting algorithm is as below: PRBs assigned per mobile 1 to 4 (First-come, first-serve basis)
Mobility of mobiles 90%
Initialization: Mobile speed 15 m/s
HMmax 12dB
1. Compute an initial set Pk of k data points by ap-
plying initially chosen HMi values one by one to net- Table I
T HE SYSTEM LEVEL SIMULATION PARAMETERS .
work/simulator and obtaining the corresponding KP It
values
Repeat until convergence:
The simulator performs correlated Monte Carlo snapshots
2. Compute the statistical model ft using Pk
with time steps of one second. The simulator performs corre-
3. Compute the new HMi value using (3)
lated snapshots to account for the time evolution of the traffic.
4. Apply HMi in the network/simulator and observe
At the end of each time step of one second, new mobile
corresponding KP It values. Compute new data points
positions are updated, HO events are processed, new users
using (5)
are admitted according to the conditions of access and some
5. Update Pk+1 : Pk+1 = Pk ∪ pk+1
other users leave the network (end their communications or are
6. k=k+1
dropped). The simulations are run for 3300 time steps, with a
End Repeat
fixed HM value, and the KPIs are averaged using the interval
between 500 and 3300 seconds to account for transient effects.
Reference Solution: An optimal default value for HM is HMi (dB) BCRc DCRc BCR DCR
chosen as 6dB for all eNBs in the network and will serve as
Phase I
6 0.040 0.016 0.82 0.041
the reference (default) solution. This reference solution will be 4 0.012 0.010 0.095 0.056
8 0.063 0.028 0.069 0.038
used as a starting point for the automated healing process. The
8.49 0.055 0.032 0.067 0.031
default HM value is determined by varying it uniformly from 8,60 0.062 0.023 0.065 0.031
Phase II
0.05 to 12 in steps of 0.15 for all the eNBs. For each HM value, 8.64 0.063 0.025 0.064 0.030
the network performance is assessed in terms of the mean Ping 8.56 0.063 0.033 0.059 0.028
8.41 0.044 0.021 0.064 0.029
Pong Rate (PPR), mean BCR and mean DCR. If these three 8.47 0.068 0.024 0.064 0.035
KPIs are aggregated as shown in Figure 3, we observe that the 8.47 0.068 0.024 0.066 0.037
global optimum HM value occurs around HM =6dB. Hence, Table II
the value of HM = 6dB is selected as the reference (default) C ONVERGENCE OF HMi DURING OPTIMIZATION PROCESS AND THE
CORRESPONDING KPI S OF TROUBLESHOOTING ALGORITHM
HM value for eNBs in the network.
Figure 3. The aggregated network KPIs (mean PPR, mean BCR and mean
DCR) as a function of uniform (default) HM
Figure 4. The KPIs in troublshooting as a function of HMi after first
optimization iteration
B. Troubleshooting Scenario I : Equal weights to KPIs
With reference to the network with 19 eNBs shown in Fig-
ure 2, eN B1 is the central eNB which we denoted by eN Bc .
Its 6 first tier eNBs T1 are given as eN B2 , eN B3 , eN B4 ,
eN B5 , eN B6 and eN B7 . While the 12 second tier neighbours
T2 are eN B8 , eN B9 , eN B10 , eN B11 , eN B12 , eN B13 ,
eN B14 , eN B15 , eN B16 , eN B17 , eN B18 and eN B19 .
We consider the case where equal importance is given to
all the KPIs, i.e., ωt =1, t ∈ BCRc , DCRc , BCR, DCR .
Initially, the system is working with default HMi = 6dB.
Table II shows the convergence of these parameters start-
ing from the three initial points (Phase I), corresponding to
HMi = 6, 4, 8dB, and seven iterations of the optimization
algorithm (Phase II). Figures 4, 5 and 6 show the KPIs as
a function of HMi after the first, second and third iterations,
respectively. As explained earlier, the KPI curves are estimated
from corresponding KPI data points using LR.
We set the thresholds for BCR and DCR to 8% and 4%, Figure 5. The KPIs in troublshooting as a function of HMi after second
optimization iteration
respectively. We observe from Table II that obtained BCR
and DCR values corresponding to the initial working point
exceed these thresholds. process (when phase-II starts) we get the next HMi =8.49dB.
Now, we apply the troubleshooting algorithm and collect the This iteration corresponds to Figure 4.
initial data points corresponding to HMi =6,4 and 8dB (Phase- After the second and third optimization iterations (shown in
I). We can see that after the first iteration of the optimization Figures 5 and 6, respectively), the HMi values converges to
Figure 6. The KPIs in troublshooting as a function of HMi after third
optimization iteration Figure 7. Convergence of HMi in troubleshooting algorithm for different
KPI weights, ωt