Gayan Abeysundara - Complex Adaptive Systems Group

Dynamic Cellular Channel Allocation using Intelligent Agents April 2005COMP 4905 Honours Projectcalls that have been successfully connected to the central telephone network and is in the processof communicating voice or data. Blocked calls refer to a call being blocked and disconnectedfrom the system for a particular reason. This may occur while a new connection is beingestablished, and no appropriate frequencies are available. As well, if a call moves out of thecurrent cell boundaries where the frequency is not strong enough and no new frequencies areavailable, the call will be blocked and dropped by the system. If a call does move out of itscurrent cell boundaries into another cell where it is allocated a new channel, it is referred to as ahandoff. Currently, all the above procedures are handled by one central system. As one couldimagine, the system has to manage a constant heavy workload to execute a continuous flow oftasks. Such a centralized system is inevitably prone to problems and could lead to a single pointof system failure.Another important aspect of cellular grids are network hot spots, or simply hotspots. A hotspotoccurs when there is high demand in a particular location of the cellular network grid. This maybe due to many reasons, some predictable and others random and unpredictable. Predictableevents that may trigger a hotspot include such things as a dense population of people duringworking hours in a city centre, or people in a large shopping mall during the weekend.Unpredictable events occur when there is an unforeseen gathering of people, possibly due to aspectator event, protest, or any other random externality that causes a population spike. As such,cellular networks should be designed appropriately to handle hotspots, whether predictable or not.3