System-Level Modeling and Simulation of Uplink WCDMA

Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is based on WCDMA technology. The capacity of this system is difficult to manually compute because of at least two reasons. Firstly, this system is designed to support many types of services, and hence capacity calculation using classic Erlang´s capacity is not sufficient. Secondly, the capacity of such system depends on interference which is a time-varying factor, so that it is necessary to precisely model the interference; otherwise the result may be inaccurate. This paper aims to provide complete details of uplink WCDMA modeling and simulation. This proposed simulation is a dynamic system-level simulation in which important parameters such as radio propagation effects, user movement, power control and interference modeling are included. The principles of WCDMA modeling and simulation which are presented in this paper are essential tools for study and research in optimising UMTS system.