On achieving self-organization in mobile WiMAX network

Mobile communication systems are moving towards the use of small cell technology to support low latency and high bandwidth applications. This trend is leading to higher operational costs as the number of base stations (BSs) to be managed will increase in proportion to the number of cells. The concept of a Self-Organizing Network (SON) has been proposed as a solution to reduce operational costs and quickly respond to customer needs. In this paper, we propose a SON solution that uses fuzzy logic to support self-configuration and self-optimization mechanisms. We define three fuzzy logic input metrics, four membership functions, and twenty-seven fuzzy rules to implement fuzzy logic controller of the solution. The solution is then validated in a mobile WiMAX simulation environment. Three different scenarios are simulated and the results are evaluated using different metrics. The results show that the proposed solution is efficient and improves the overall performance of a SON-based mobile WiMAX network.