Modeling and Performance Analysis of Three Zone-Based Registration Scheme in Wireless Communication Networks

Abstract

For wireless communication networks, researchers have proposed many schemes to reduce the cost of location registration and paging signals caused by the mobility of user equipment (UE). Among them, a zone-based method that designates one zone (1Z, group of cells) as a registration area (RA) and then performs registration whenever the UE leaves the RA is commonly adopted due to its convenient implementation. However, the performance of 1Z is known to be very poor when the UE frequently crosses the RA’s boundary requesting location updates. Two or three zone-based schemes (2Z or 3Z) have since been recommended to overcome these limitations. In our previous work, we analyzed the performances of 1Z, 2Z, and 3Z systems while assuming a square-shaped zone. However, there is no reason why the shape of the zone is limited to a square. This paper analyzes the performance of 3Z while assuming a hexagonal-shaped rather than a square-shaped zone. Using a semi-Markov process theory, registration and paging costs are evaluated after defining states in 3Z operations and calculating the transition probability between states. Based on various realistic parameters, the numerical results showed that the 3Z outperformed 1Z and 2Z for most call-to-mobility ratio (CMR) values. The performance of 3Z was improved more when the registration cost decreased if the probability of returning to the previously registered zone increased or the time staying in the zone decreased. The 3Z system is easy to implement with simple software modifications. It can be dynamically applied as an efficient mobility management method in the future for various devices that will emerge in the 5G/6G environment.

Performance Analysis of Two-Zone-Based Registration System with Timer in Wireless Communication Networks

“…Registration whenever RA boundary is passed Easy to implement High registration traffic at RA boundaries [11,12] No registration when passing two RA boundaries…”

“…Paging traffic resulting from paging two RAs [10,13] Registration whenever RA boundary is passed Easy to implement High registration traffic at RA boundaries [11,12] characteristic of staying in the RA for a long time and trying to initiate calls. Typically, if a 1Z scheme with one RA and a 2Z scheme with two RAs are compared to each other, the larger the CMR and the smaller the q, the worse the performance of the 2Z scheme compared to the 1Z scheme.…”

“…In other words, as the RA's size increases, the registration cost decreases and the paging cost increases. Ultimately, the RA's size and the associated costs of registration and paging have a trade-off relationship [9][10][11].…”

“…To date, many studies have been carried out to enhance the utilization of wireless frequency resources for mobility management, as shown in Table 1. These studies can be categorized into zone-based [10][11][12][13], distance-based [14,15], movement-based [16,17], timerbased [18,19], and mobility prediction-based [20]. In particular, new mobility management schemes for various moving devices beyond 5G and 6G have been recently discussed [21][22][23].…”

“…Lin [10] first proposed a 2Z scheme with two zones in one RA and showed that the greater the probability of returning to the previous RA, the better the performance of the 2Z scheme. In addition, a 3Z scheme with three zones within one RA via expanding the 2Z scheme has been proposed [11,12]. The performances of the three schemes for various parameters were compared [13].…”