Eighth ACIS International Conference on Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking, and Parallel/Distributed Computing
Mining of Reuse Patterns in CDMA Network Optimization
Wen Ye and Hongxu Cui
School of Computer Science and Technology, Beijing University of Posts and
Telecommunications, Beijing, 100876, China
yewen@ bupt.edu.cn
Abstract
CAP, a classical problem in cellular mobile
communication networks such as GSM/GPRS or
CDMA cellular mobile networks, refers to assigning a
limited number of available channels to many mobile
voice or data users while minimizing electromagnetic
interferences. Most existing researches on CAP focus
mainly on channel separation constraints, but pay little
attention to geometric constraints defined by reuse
patterns that is of great value in engineering
applications. An extended CAP model named RCAP
(Reuse-pattern-oriented CAP) is proposed, which takes
account of both of these two constraints. A systematic
solution to RCAP is elaborated, which includes two
sequential steps, i.e., partition of reuse groups and
channel assignment in the groups. Partition of reuse
groups is reduced to subgraph isomorphism and can
be tackled by subgraph mining while channel
assignment in groups is solved in a heuristic manner.
The effectiveness of RCAP and its solution was verified
by three benchmarks. RCAP was applied to PN offsets
assignment in the CDMA networks in several cities of
Liaoning Province, and a case study is illustrated in
the paper. These results indicate that the proposed
RCAP scheme is a very promising solution to channel
assignment problems in practical CDMA networks.
1. Introduction
CAP, a classical problem in cellular mobile
communication networks, refers to assigning a limited
number of available channels to many mobile voice or
data users while causing minimum electromagnetic
interference. The term channel means a combination of
a carrier frequency and a time slot in GSM/GPRS
networks. It also means a PN offset in CDMA2000
networks or a set of scrambling codes in WCDMA
networks. Reuse of a channel in different network cells
is inevitable for the number of channels demanded by
mobile users is much larger than that of available
0-7695-2909-7/07 $25.00 © 2007 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/SNPD.2007.448
channels in the networks. However, improper reuse
causes interferences among users and deterioration in
the quality of services. [1]
To avoid electromagnetic interferences, channels
should be assigned under electromagnetic
compatibility constraints, i.e. co-channel constraints,
adjacent channel constraints and co-site constraints[2].
CAP can be reduced to a constrained optimization
problem and is NP-complete in nature. Many
approaches have been proposed to solve CAP, such as
graph coloring [3], [4], simulated annealing [5], neural
networks [6], genetic algorithms [7], [8] and heuristic
algorithms [9], [10], but none of them has paid
attention to reuse patterns.
As an important and engineering-oriented factor to
be considered in practical GSM/GPRS networks and
CDMA networks, reuse patterns [1]-[2], [17] define
geometrical constraints on the location relationships
among the cells to be allocated the channels. The
commonly used reuse patterns in GSM/GPRS
networks are 4/12, 3/9 and 2/6, etc.[2]. An example of
the 4/12 reuse pattern is given in Fig.1. This pattern
consists of 12 cells, i.e., Ai, Bi, Ci, and Di, i=1, 2, 3,
and each cell should be assigned a different channel.
For CDMA networks such as CDMA20001x networks
of China Unicom in P.R. China, the popular reuse
pattern is composed of 37 cells [11], [12].
Cells sharing the same channel are called the co-
channel cells. The reuse distance is the distance in
space between a pair of co-channel cells and is
represented by the number of cells’ layers between
them. For example, in Fig. 1, the channel f2 is shared
by the cell A3 in the group X and the cell A3 in Y, so
the reuse distance is 2. The reuse distance should be
larger than certain lower bound, called the minimum
reuse distance, according to the co-channel constraints.
When reuse patterns are considered, channels
should be assigned to cells not only under the three
kinds of channel separation constraints mentioned
above but also under the geometric constraints defined
by reuse patterns. It is claimed by reuse pattern
constraints that the geometric distribution of channels
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should be in accordance with reuse patterns and two
cells assigned the same channel should be as close as
possible to reduce the reuse distance between them, so
that the channel reuse efficiency will greatly improve.
Fig. 1. A part of GSM network containing two
adjacent reuse groups X and Y that are in line
with 4/12 reuse pattern. The label in each cell
indicates the co-channel group it belongs to.
For example, in Fig.1, the cell labeled C2 in the
group X has been allocated a channel f1. It’s supposed
that f1 can also be distributed to the two cells labeled
C2 and C3 in the group Y without violating the co-
channel constraints. The cell labeled C2 in Y is at the
same position in group as that labeled C2 in X does,
and closer to the cell labeled C2 in X than that labeled
C3 in Y does. Therefore, it is desirable to assign f1 to
the cell labeled C2 in Y instead of the cell labeled C3
in Y. Such assignment is in accordance with the 4/12
reuse pattern, resulting in smaller reuse distances and
higher channel reuse efficiency.
Although some works on CAP [16]-[19] considered
reuse patterns, none of them has proposed an analytic
framework to detect reuse groups and plot out co-
channel groups in a given network. In this context, a
co-channel group is defined as a set of cells that can be
assigned the same channel under the channel
separation constraints. A reuse group is defined as a set
of cells that cluster together geographically to form a
reuse pattern. Each cell of a reuse group belongs to a
unique co-channel group in relation to its unique
position in the reuse group. In Fig. 1, for instance, the
12 cells in the reuse group X cluster into a 4/12 reuse
pattern and each of them vests in a different co-channel
group.
The reuse pattern is such an important factor that
should not be ignored in planning and optimization of
both GSM/GPRS and CDMA networks in practice
[12], [17]. We extend the classical CAP model to a
reuse-pattern-oriented CAP model, named RCAP,
which takes into account both channel separation
constraints and reuse patterns. Moreover, on the basis
of subgraph isomorphism theories, we view reuse
patterns as subgraphs and tackle RCAP in two
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sequential steps, that is, partition of reuse groups and
channel assignment in the groups. Partition of reuse
groups is conducted by subgraph mining while channel
assignment in groups is solved in a heuristic manner.
We also evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of
RCAP by three benchmarks and an application case in
CDMA network optimization.
In Section II, the definition of the RCAP model is
given. Section III illustrates the two-stage algorithm
for RCAP in details. Section IV and Section V
evaluates the performance of the algorithm on 21-cell,
49-cell and 98-cell benchmarks, and describes the
applications of RCAP in optimization of CDMA
networks in practice. Finally, the summary of our
works and possible improvements on RCAP are
discussed in Section VI.
2. RCAP model
2.1. Concepts and notations
Some concepts and definitions concerning subgraph
isomorphism [13], [14] are listed as follows, on which
RCAP is built.
Graphs, containing different types of vertices and/or
edges, are called labeled. We shall represent a labeled
graph as a 4-tuple G = [V, E, µ, u], where V= {vi} and
E = {eij} = {<vi, vj>} are the set of vertices and the set
of edges respectively. |V| is the number of vertices and
|E| is the number of edges. Each element vi and eij has
its own properties, which may be called labels. µ(vi)
and u(eij) are the labeling functions, the label of vi is
denoted as µ(vi) and the label of eij as u(eij).
In the following parts of this paper, we use the
terms graph and labeled graph interchangeably.
Given two graphs G1 = [V1, E1, µ1, u1] and G2 = [V2,
E2, µ2, u2], if there is a one-to-one mapping f: V1→V2,
such that
∀ vi, vj ∈ V1, < vi, vj > ∈ E1 ⇔ < f(vi), f(vj) > ∈ E2 ;
∀ v i ∈ V1, µ1(vi )= µ2(f(vi )) ;
∀ < vi, vj > ∈ E1, u1(< vi, vj >) = u2(<f(vi ), f(vj)>)
, then G1 and G2 are called isomorphism, which is
represented as G1 ≅ G2.
An induced subgraph of the graph G = [V, E, µ, u]
is a graph H= [W, F, µ, u], where W ⊆ V and
F=E∩{W×W}. H is also called a subgraph of G for
short. That is represented as H=ind(G, W).
Given two graphs G1 and G2, if there is a subgraph
of G1 denoted as H, and H ≅ G2, then G1 includes G2,
which is represented as G2 ⊆ G1.
Subgraphs H1 and H2 of two given graphs G1 and G2
are called common subgraphs, if H1 ≅ H2.
Suppose that the graph H = [V, E, µ, u] is a
common subgraph of two given graphs G1 and G2. If
there is not another common subgraph H*= [W, F, µ,
u] of G1 and G2, where |W|>|V|, then H is called the
maximal common subgraph (MCS) of G1 and G2.
2.2. RCAP model
A cellular mobile communication network N,
composed of n cells, can be represented as a graph G =
[V, E, µ, u], where the cells are considered as the
vertices in the graph. An edge that connects two
vertices indicates that the two cells represented by
these two vertices are adjacent to each other. The label
of each vertex indicates the co-channel group the cell
belongs to. Cells in the same co-channel group are
permitted to be allocated the same channel.
The label of each edge <vi, vj> in G indicates the
way vi is adjacent to vj and is called adjacency mode.
There are six adjacency modes in the regular cellular
networks and each mode is represented by an integer
between 1 and 6. In Fig. 2, u (<A, B>) is 3 and u (<B,
A>) is 4.
Fig. 2. Six adjacency modes between cells in
the regular cellular network
A reuse pattern can be represented as a graph P=
[W, F, µ*, u*]. The label of a vertex in P is called the
available label, which indicates the co-channel group
the vertex stands for.
The reuse-pattern-oriented CAP model RCAP is
defined as follows:
1) a network N and its graph G=[V, E, µ, u];
2) the reuse pattern graph P=[W, F, µ*, u*], where
m=|W| and the set of available labels is A={1, 2,
…, m};
3) the channel separation matrix C= (c ij ) n×n ;
4) the objective and constraints:
finding a partition H={V1, V2, …, Vk, O} of the
vertex set V in G and a labeling function µ:V→A,
guaranteeing that
min |O|
s.t. i) ∀ 1≤ i ≤ k, ind(G, Vi) ⊆ P ;
ii) there is no such i, j that for 1≤ i, j ≤ k ∧ i ≠ j,
ind(G, Vi ∪ Vj) ⊆ P ;
iii) ∀ vi , vj ∈ V─ O, µ(vi )=µ(vj) ⇒ C(vi, vj)=0;
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iv) ∀ v∈ O, x∈ A, ∃ v’∈ V─ O,
µ(v’ )=x ∧ C(v, v’)>0.
(1)
, where C(v, v’) is the separation constraint cij and i, j
are the indexes of vertices v and v’.
The constraints i), ii), iii) and iv) in RCAP represent
both channel separation constraints and the reuse
pattern constraint. The objective of RCAP is to assign
as many cells in G as possible to the co-channel groups
defined by the reuse pattern P, in other words, as few
cells in G as possible to the orphan group O. The cells
in O are not allowed to share the same channels with
that in the reuse groups V1, V2, … and Vk.
3. The Reuse-pattern-oriented channel
assignment algorithm RCA
RCA is composed of two sequential stages. At the
first stage, the Maximal Common Subgraph Detection
Algorithm is used to partition the whole network into
several reuse groups. At the second stage, the heuristic
algorithm is employed to assign channels to each cell
on the basis of the reuse groups.
3.1. Reuse group partition by subgraph
isomorphism
Using common subgraph isomorphism detection
algorithm [14] for reference, reuse groups partition can
be conducted by repeatedly mining the MCS (i.e.
maximal common subgraph), denoted as G*, of graphs
G and P. Each mined G* is regarded as a reuse group
and the vertex of G* is assigned an available label of
reuse pattern P under the co-channel constraints.
The vertex that does not appear in any mined G* is
defined as an orphan cell, to which no available labels
can be assigned under the co-channel constraints. All
of the orphans compose the orphan set O.
The variables and denotations are listed as follows.
n=|V|, m=|W|, A= {1, 2, …, m};
Tabus(v): a set of labels that can not be assigned to
vertex v;
VMM[1…m][1…x]: Vertex Matching Matrix, of
which each row corresponds to a vertex of P and each
column corresponds to a vertex of G, VMM[i][j]=1
means that wi can be mapped to vj;
nmax, nmatch: the size and the numbers of the MCSs
that have been found;
X, Y: X={X1, X2, …, Xnmatch}, Y={Y1, Y2, …,
Ynmatch}, each 2-tuple (Xi, Yi) represents a MCS, where
Xi and Yi are numerations of subgraph vertices,
Xi ⊆ W, Yi ⊆ V;
Seeds: a set of vertices of G that hasn’t been
assigned labels, not including orphans. When a vertex
is assigned a label or become an orphan, it is removed
from this set;
Minf(w): the set of cells within the interference
domain of the cell w, ie. Minf(w) = {v | v∈V and C(v,
w)>0}.
The procedure of reuse group partition is listed in
Fig. 3. A recursive scheme for MCS mining is
implemented in the procedure Backtrack(VMM),
which is to find all the MCSs of Gs and P by
backtracking search on the input vertex matching
matrix with some pruning strategies.
Fig. 3. Reuse group partition by MCS mining
The scheme in Fig.3 has a characteristic that
differentiates it from that in [14]. To avoid the
expensive time and space costs in MSC mining from G
and P, it first picks up an unlabeled vertex, then
induces the subgraph Gs, which contains v and all the
other unlabeled vertices that is within the minimum
reuse distance from v, from G. It can be inferred that
the reuse group, in which v is included, must be
included in G. So this scheme detects MCS from P and
Gs that is a subgraph of G.
The function PickSeedVertex() returns the vertex
which maximizes the value of a specific expression.
When more than one MCS are detected, the scheme
chooses the best one according to some filtration rules.
The expression and filtration rules are another key
factor in achieving the optimization objective. We use
the expression d(v) + α(Minf(v)∩Seeds), where d(v) is
the number of labeled vertices adjacent to v.
3.2. Heuristic channel assignment based on
reuse groups
After partition of reuse groups, an intact reuse group
is selected at first as the seed group and an assignment
plan for this group is obtained by using the heuristic
CAP algorithm HCA [10] proposed by us. This plan is
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then copied to all the other reuse groups, following that
the cell i, which has the same label as that of another
cell j in the seed group, shares the same one channel
with j. Finally, HFA is employed to distribute channels
for all the cells in the orphan group.
To obtain a plan for the seed group, a channel
separation matrix M= (mij ) m×m should be created for
this group. This matrix cannot be created merely by
taking out the corresponding rows and columns from
the matrix C. None of the reuse groups is alone and
three kinds of constraints exist between adjacent reuse
groups. The matrix M can be defined as
mij = Max{C(v, w)}
, where v, w∈ V, µ(v)=i, µ(w)=j (2)
3.3. Complexity analysis
The time complexity of the first stage, denoted as
T1, depends mainly on the number of iterations and the
complexity of the procedure Backtracking. T1 is
described as follow, where x=|Vs| ≤ |Minf(v)|,
O(nx) ≤ T1 ≤ O( x m+1 mn) (3)
m+
1
( ) ≤ T ≤ O( x
O nx mn )
1
The time complexity of the second stage, denoted as
T2 is as follows, where o is the number of orphan cells.
1
T2 = O( n 2 + m 2 + a × m + n − m + o × n + b × o 2 )
2 (4)
= O(n 2 + m 2 + o × n + o 2 )
4. Benchmark verifications
Table 1 Comparisons of channel assignment
results between RCA and HCA
Benchmark RCA HCA
21-cell 12/13 13/13
49-cell 12/14 14/14
98-cell 12/14 16/16
The algorithm RCA is applied to PN offset planning
for the 21-cell benchmark [9], 49-cell and 98-cell
regular networks. The minimum reuse distance is 3 and
the reuse pattern is 12-cell. The minimum channel
separation between adjacent cells is 3. The results are
compared to that get by heuristic channel assignment
algorithms (HCA)[9], [10] under the same conditions,
as shown in Tabel 1. The numbers before and after the
slash denote the number of distinct PN offsets that
have been assigned and the maximum of that
respectively.
The comparison shows that, with respect to the same
one network, RCA uses less PN offsets than HCA, and
the margin grows when the size of the network gets
larger. RCA outperforms HCA, because it takes
account of reuse patterns and endeavors to minimize
the reuse distance.
HCA 3 9 5 1 12 7 3 scenario, 8 practical adjacency modes are mapped to 6
10 6 2 13 8 4 10
51 12 7 3 11 14
2 13 8 4 10 6 2
12 7 3 11 14 1 12
8 4 10 6 2 5 8
b optimizing in the CDMA20001x network of China
3 11 14 1 12 9 13
Fig. 4. The PN offset assignment plans for 49-
cell network, the figure in the middle of each
cell denotes the index of PN offset assigned to
it.
Fig. 4 shows the two plans for the 49-cell network
get from RCA and HCA. In Fig. 4a, the broad lines are
the boundaries between different reuse groups and the
reuse distance of each PN offset is 3. While in Fig.4b,
the reuse distances for offsets 5, 9, 13 are obviously
larger than 3.
5. Application cases
5.1. Application-specific considerations
A practical network often contains irregular-size
cells, resulting in the adjacent modes defined in Fig. 2
become partly obsolete. To improve the feasibility of
RCA, two obstacles must be tackled first, i.e., 1) how
to determine the adjacency relations and the adjacency
modes among cells in practical networks; 2) how to
adapt RCA to inexact subgraph matching necessary for
practical networks.
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Fig. 5. The mapping from the actual adjacency
modes to the regular adjacency modes
The Voronoi graph [15] is used to determine the
boundaries among cells. For a given network, a
Voronoi graph is deduced, two cells sharing a same
boundary in the graph are adjacent and their adjacency
relations can then be decided.
As shown in Fig. 5, there are 8 adjacency modes in
practical networks, i.e., up, down, left, right, up-left,
up-right, down-left and down-right. However, RCA in
Fig. 3 considers only 6 regular adjacency modes in Fig.
2. To adapt RCA to inexact subgraph matching
regular modes as defined in Fig. 5.
5.2 An Application Case in the CDMA
Network
RCA has been applied to PN offset planning and
Unicom in Yingkou, Fushun and Jinzhou of Liaoning
Province. Here is an example in Yingkou, a city lying
by the seaside.
Table 2 Display of several reuse Groups and
orphan cells
Group ID Cells in the group
43(1), 44(2), 42(4), 33(5), 32(6), 45(7),
V1
41(8), 34(9), 22(10), 23(11), 31(12)
28(1), 48(4), 29(5), 27(6), 47(8), 30(9),
V2
26(10), 13(11)
15(1), 14(2), 24(3), 16(4), 10(5), 12(7),
V3
9(8), 1(12)
19(1), 18(2), 21(3), 20(4), 6(6), 7(7),
V4
5(12)
V5 39(1), 40(2), 38(7)
O 3, 8, 17, 25, 35, 46
The CDMA network in Yingkou covers an area of
about 450 square kilometers, contains 2 BSC, 123
BTS/cells and 329 sectors. The parameter Pilot_Inc is
selected as 4 and thus there are 128 available PN
offsets.
For the purpose of comparison, a rural area covering
about 80 square kilometers is selected as a sample.
This area contains 49 regular and irregular cells, each
of which contains three sectors.
The reuse pattern employed includes 12 vertices and
the reuse distance is 3. The partition of reuse groups is
shown in Table 2. The number in brackets right after
each cell index is the label assigned to the cell. Some
reuse groups with small sizes are not listed in the table,
which are 49(11), 11(9), 2(6), 36(12), 4(11) and 37(5).
On the basis of the partitions of reuse groups
given in Table II, 54 (i.e. (12+6)× 3) PN-offset are
then assigned to 49× 3 sectors in this area by RCA,
where 62 PN-offset are needed for these 147 sectors if
HCA is applied to the whole 49-cell network.
6. Conclusions
Aiming at PN offset planning in CDMA networks,
we propose a reuse-pattern-oriented CAP model
RCAP, along with its solution scheme RCA.
There are several key characteristics in our scheme.
The maximal common-subgraph-mining algorithm is
used to detect reuse groups and to plot out co-channel
groups, while the labeling method assures the co-
channel constraints being satisfied. In regard to
heuristic channel assignment for reuse groups, an
approach for separation matrix generating is given. The
strategies for adapting the scheme to practical networks
with irregular cells are also illustrated.
The effectiveness of RCA was verified by three
benchmarks. The feasibility of RCAP in practical
networks was validated by an application case in
Yingkou city. The result also showed the need of
improvement on inexact graph matching to satisfy
practical requirements. In addition, our future work
will concentrate on a reuse-pattern-oriented CAP
model that allows a cell to request more than one
channel, and is expected to be more suitable for
channel assignment in GSM/GPRS networks and
WCDMA networks.
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