Performance Analysis of Vertical and Higher Order Sectorization in Urban Environment at 28 GHz

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to compare the performance of a cellular network using higher order sectorization in a horizontal domain, vertical sectorization, and super cell configuration. The urban macrocellular environment from the city of Helsinki is targeted, and 28 GHz frequency is used as the frequency of operation. Conventional three sector site deployment scenario is also included for reference. The comparative analysis is conducted from different dimensions, and the performance metrics considered in this study includes the SINR, the inner sector traffic share, server dominance with 3 dB overlapping window, and the spectral efficiency of the system. This research work is carried out by doing 3D ray tracing simulations utilizing “sAGA”, a MATLAB based 3D ray tracing tool. It is found more complicated to find the optimal antenna configuration for vertical sectorization and super cell configuration in comparison with higher order sectorization. It is also established from the acquired results that the higher order sectorization is an easy approach for enhancing the cell capacity compared with vertical sectorization and super cell configuration. Higher order sectorization provides a spectral efficiency gain of around 96.7%, whereas the relative spectral efficiency gain of vertical sectorization and super cell configuration is limited to 62.8% and 10.6%, respectively, with respect to three sector site deployment.