Evaluation of tracking local strategies in wireless networks with stochastic activity networks

A novel approach using stochastic activity networks (SAN) as a performance evaluation tool for several mobility tracking algorithms in personal communication networks (PCN) is presented. It is shown that SAN offers a systematic and flexible graphical tool to model the dynamics of the PCNs. We were dealing with location update and paging procedures. The flexibility of SAN tool allows a non-complex graphical representation of these procedures, and therefore, a very easy way to analyse and derive the system performance. Two sets of location update procedures are analysed, the local or dynamic strategies and new hybrid strategies between movement and distance. These set of strategies are envisaged for future cellular PCN, where micro and pico cells are the standard cell layout coverage in urban environments. UltraSAN is also an excellent tool for modelling and analysis of multi-step or selective paging strategies. An important contribution of this new methodology is its flexibility and adaptability to different scenarios and the required computational effort is bounded, with the major characteristic that the complexity of the model increases slightly with growing system complexity.