A Markov Chain-Based Capacity Dimensioning Method for Wireless Communications System with AMC, HARQ and Packet Multimedia Traffic Source

Capacity dimensioning is one of the key procedures in wireless network planning. In this paper, the question of how to efficiently evaluate the capacity of wireless communications systems with a comprehensive consideration of adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) and packet multimedia traffic source is examined. By investigating the joint effect of AMC and HARQ and modeling the packet multimedia traffic source as a discrete Markov modulated Poisson process (D-MMPP), a four-dimensional discrete time Markov chain (DTMC) is proposed to analyze the system behavior. Based on the stationary state distribution of this Markov chain, system capacity in terms of throughput, delay and packet loss rate is derived in closed-form expressions. Capacity dimensioning results are presented to illustrate the interdependence between system performance and system parameters. Computer simulations are also carried out to verify these results.