Green 4g Radio Network Planning

Energy-efficient planning is a current challenge for heterogeneous 4g wireless networks, since 'greener' strategies typically act against the always growing traffic requirements. However, network-wide optimization of base station antenna patterns can be exploited to that end, leading the total transmit power of the network to a global minimum. This article formulates the coverage and capacity optimization problem in the context of 4g systems and uses a multi-objective genetic algorithm in order to optimize each sector transmitted power, as well as antenna pattern with respect to its pointing direction and 3dB beamwidth. The proposed optimization algorithm is applied to provide the most power efficient network setup that, if desired, can be also optimized to leave the least possible coverage holes in the network area in exchange of further power reduction. The trade-off between transmitted power and coverage can be observed leaving further choices to the network designer. Results in a test scenario show that the reconfigured network setups can neatly adjust radiation patterns to increase capacity capabilities, while reducing network power consumption and maximizing coverage in the network area.