Mobility Modelling using Attraction Points for Cellular Network Environments

Mobility modelling is a critical element in the development, dimensioning and deployment of any cellular network infrastructure. As subscribers generally move in a deterministic manner, the mobility model used should reflect these inherent user patterns. Throughout a typical day, due to work/recreational activities, users are attracted to different areas of a cellular network, i.e. outlining cells of a city experience busy hour traffic in the morning as users are entering the city centre. To capture these inherent user mobility patterns, we propose a cellular network mobility model using attraction points distributed throughout the network to influence the destination of a user depending on the time of day. A key element in the proposed model is its simplicity of implementation with minimal computational overhead making it an ideal candidate for network analysis where real user mobility data is unavailable or the computational overhead of such a model is excessive.