The EUREKA Gandalf project: monitoring and self-tuning techniques for heterogeneous radio access networks

The introduction and evolution of third-generation (3G) mobile radio systems leads to a heterogeneous radio access network landscape. Network management becomes crucial to guarantee optimum cooperation between network sub-systems. This paper summarizes the objectives and first solution ideas of the European project Gandalf, which has been accepted in the framework of the EUREKA/CELTIC initiative. The aim of the Gandalf project is to employ large-scale network monitoring, advanced radio resource management (ARRM), parameter optimization and configuration management techniques in order to achieve automation of network management tasks in a multi-system environment. The radio access technologies (RATs) Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), Universal Mobile Communication System (UMTS) and wireless local area network (WLAN) IEEE 802.11 are considered. The project develops appropriate techniques to collect and process network data on a large scale in order to produce key performance indicators allowing to identify malfunctions and to dynamically propose and perform healing actions. To optimize the user-perceived quality-of-service (QoS) and overall system performance, the project proposes new radio resource management algorithms together with methods for self-tuning. The project demonstrates through network simulations the feasibility of the multi-system self-tuning concept. Finally, hardware demonstrations prove the viability of the ARRM and auto-tuning concepts.