User distance distribution for overlapping and coexisting cell scenarios

In this paper, we propose a methodology to obtain realistic user distance distributions including overlapping and coexisting cell scenarios in cellular communication systems. In regular cell planning, coverage areas of neighboring macrocell base stations are intentionally overlapped to achieve seamless handover and to prevent blind spots. Also, coexistence with other base stations (e.g. femtocells) is allowed to provide better coverage and capacity with emerging heterogeneous networks. Therefore, even if the user density is uniform in the area of interest, the distance of the users linked to the corresponding base station might not be characterized with uniform distribution because of the overlapping and coexisting cells. Considering these facts, the overlapping regions are investigated based on user sharing between the base stations. In addition, by using the density of randomly deployed small base stations, the effect of coexistence on the user density is analyzed. As a result, realistic user distance distribution including effects of both randomly deployed base stations and neighboring large cells are obtained with proposed methodology.