Abstract
Adequate and uniform network coverage provision is one of the main objectives of cellular service providers. Additionally, the densification of cells exacerbates coverage and service provision challenges, particularly at the cell-edges. In this paper, we present a new approach of cell-sweeping-based Base Stations (BSs) deployments in cellular Radio Access Networks (RANs) where the coverage is improved by enhancing the cell-edge performance. In essence, the concept of cell-sweeping rotates/sweeps the sectors of a site in azimuth continuously/discretely resulting in near-uniform distribution of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) around the sweeping site. This paper investigates the proposed concept analytically by deriving expressions for the PDF/CDF of SINR and achievable rate; and with the help of system-level simulations, it shows that the proposed concept can provide throughput gains of up to 125% at the cell-edge. Then, using a link-budget analysis, it is shown that the maximum allowable path loss (MAPL) increases by 2.1 dB to 4.1 dB corresponding to the gains in wideband SINR and post-equalized SINR, respectively. This increase in MAPL can be translated to cell-radius/area with the help of the Okumura-Hata propagation model and results in cell-coverage area enhancement by 30% to 66% in a Typical Urban cell deployment scenario.