Uplink Interference Management of High Bit Rate Users in Evolved WCDMA

Abstract: The WCDMA air interface, used in the third generation mobile communication systems, is currently being evolved to improve the uplink, i.e. the radio links carrying traffic from the mobile user to the fixed network. An enhanced uplink concept is being developed to meet the expected needs from future applications like multimedia and video-streaming. This thesis studies interference management when high bit rates are introduced in the enhanced uplink. The study is performed through theoretical assessments and simulations using WCDMA system simulators. An optimization scheme using a basic system throughput based scheduling is derived to attain a theoretical assessment of bit rate limits. The throughput optimization is achieved at the expense of user-experienced fairness. Users located on cell coverage area overlap show to be most complicated to manage. The need for interference management is primary when the network deployment consists of small cells while coverage requirements are most essential when the cell size increases. By exploiting the benefits of directional antennas the antenna tilt can be tuned to increase performance resulting in increased bit rates, increased system throughput and increased resource efficiency. The improvements are attained without trade-offs and the different components of the study concur unanimously.