WLC09-3: Self-Organization in Cellular Wireless Networks via Fixed Relay Nodes

Current cellular networks are not self-organizing in nature; e.g., they are vulnerable to base station (BS) failures or malfunctions due to congestion (a large amount of traffic) or due to emergencies. To address this problem, use of fixed relay nodes (FRNs) in a geographical area (which may or may not be covered by base stations or access points) was recently proposed to introduce self-organizing features to cellular wireless networks, such as enabling traffic forwarding in case of congestion and handling base station failures. In this paper, we provide an algorithm for choosing system parameters in a joint cellular and fixed relay network such that quality of service (QoS) requirements in terms of delay are satisfied. In particular, we show how to determine the optimum number of neighbors to achieve small average path lengths, high coverage, and low vulnerability to failures.