2015 Eight International Workshop on Selected Topics in Mobile and Wireless Computing

Mobile Relay Node in Public Transportation for

Serving Outside LTE Cell Edge Users
Malak Charaf, Hassan Artail, Youssef Nasser
American University of Beirut, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Bliss Street, P.O. Box: 11-0236, Beirut Lebanon
mac27@mail.aub.edu

ARTIST 4G [2]. An MRN is intended to form its own cell

AbstractIn 3GPP LTE-Advanced standard forum,
Mobile Relay Node (MRN) occupies an important place. It
is well known that cell-edge users suffer from bad Signal
Level strength. To improve the signal quality and network
coverage at the cell-edge it is proposed to use Mobile Relay
Node. For the moment, MRN communicates to the UE
devices in the vehicle. In this paper, we propose to
implement MRN on the top of public transportation
having known path and low speed to serve data hungry
users outside the vehicles.
KeywordsMobile Relay Node; MRN; eNode, MRN
Selection; LTE-Advanced
I. INTRODUCTION
The 3GPP standardization process is promoting the usage of
several new technologies in order to increase capacity and
serve cell-edge users. In order to improve the network cell
edge capacity and extend its coverage, few techniques were
proposed and introduced in recent 3GPP releases. Coordinated
multi-point (CoMP) is one such technique that requires the
cooperation of two or more base stations in transmitting to the
same cell edge UE in such a way that the received signal at the
UE is stronger and interference is cancelled. The second main
technique is relaying which works to improve the network cell
edge capacity and extend its coverage through the deployment
lower-power nodes known as relay nodes (RNs), overlaid
under the coverage area of a macro-cell. This deployment
reduces the effective distance between the infrastructure and
the User Equipment (UE), and also solves the bad coverage
problem that may exist in some areas due to physical structure
limitations. A specific type of relaying that our proposed
scheme in this paper is based on using mobile relay nodes
(MRNs) that reduces the cost associated with deploying fixed
RNs. MRNs can be mounted on vehicles, like busses and
trains, to provide coverage around their movement tracks. An
MRN connects with the donor eNB via a relay link and
connects to the UEs via access links [1].
The technique of Mobile Fixed Relay might be proposed in
next releases of 3GPP and is already being investigated in
inside the vehicle in which it is installed, thus giving the
mother eNB (eNB to which the mobile relay is attached) the
advantages of improving the coverage, enhancing the
average user throughput especially at the cell-edge, and
consequently, the system capacity. Previous studies have
shown that the MRNs reduce the signaling overhead by
performing group handover instead of individual handover
(but each UE still needs to be handled at the Mobility
Management Entity MME [3]). Moreover, the UE devices that
are close to the MRNs but are outside the vehicles will
wrongly attach to the MRNs resulting in a degradation of
services and a reduction in the relay capacity because the
network planning and design did not take them into
consideration, as the main objective was to serve the vehicular
UEs and reduce the handover rate.
The idea of moving relays is a complementary technology for
fixed relays to provide additional coverage in some areas or
during events. For example, in case of traffic accidents and
sports games matches, high network capacity should be
provided in order for the network to cope with the exceptional
high data or voice traffic [4]. In addition, when users are
connected to the moving relay, they will be in close proximity
to them, which reduces the level of necessary transmission
power and the incidence of call drops during handovers. It
also increases the UE battery lifetime. An additional
advantage of using MRNs is that the moving relays are not
energy limited like User Equipment because MRNs are
supposed to be powered by the batteries of the vehicles.
Our work, on the other hand, aims to extend the original
purpose and intended use of MRNs to opportunistically serve
users outside the vehicles and improve the cell edge users
signals quality. Obviously, there is a suite of technical issues
that need to be resolved in order to make our approach works.
These issues will be described and their respective solutions
will be elaborated in the design section, but just to give a
general idea, one such issue is the relative difference in
velocity between the MRN and the UE, and the fact that
MRNs move on restricted paths (i.e., roads). These properties
will require proper handling of handover as the MRN moves

978-1-4673-7701-0/15/$31.00 2015 IEEE 59

 2015 Eight International Workshop on Selected Topics in Mobile and Wireless Computing
farther from the UE and the availability of another MRN
whose coverage area includes the UE in question. On the
other hand, the advantages of our approach are numerous, at
the top of which is the ability to serve users at the edge of the
cell without deploying expensive equipment (i.e., fixed and
dedicated relay nodes), or complex techniques that reduce the
capacity of the network, like CoMP.
II. RELATED WORK
The use of MRNs was motivated by considering an
interference-limited scenario [5], in which MRNs operate at a
much lower transmission power as compared to macro eNBs.
Both half-duplex and full duplex MRNs were considered. It
was reported that the cell-edge performance while using
MRNs is better when compared to the performance where UE
devices are served directly by macro eNBs. The performance
improvement is due to the better propagation conditions
provided by the backhaul link (link between the eNBs and the
relays) as contrasted to the direct links between the macro
eNBs and the UEs at the extremity of the cell.
Since the relays are characterized by low transmission power,
their coverage areas are relatively small. A related issue
concerns UEs that are near the edge of the coverage area of
the relay, which will wrongly connect to the macro cell base
station (due to its higher received power) instead of
connecting to the relay. To solve this issue and improve the
relay performance, a solution was proposed in [6] by
introducing a bias to cell selection and handover thresholds.
When the bias is applied, the relay cells can be extended and
an appropriate load balance between the macro cell and the
relay nodes is achieved. Consequently, more users will
connect to the Relay Nodes.
The relay acts like an eNB from the UEs point of view, but it
is still controlled by the eNB. Without relaying, the only
handover that is required is the handover from one eNB to
another. However, when relays are introduced [7], there is
now handover between the eNB and the RNs and between the
RNs themselves. In [4], the handover between the relays is a
point of interest since an MRN serving static or a slow
moving UE (outside the MRNs vehicle) requires a dynamic
UE-MRN association. The handover scenario treated in [7] is
based on the measurements sent from the UE to the mother
eNB, which controls the RN serving the UE and decides when
to trigger a handover. The same eNB or the target eNB
commands the target RN to allocate the necessary resources
for the new connection. The eNB then sends a handover
command to the UE via the RN causing the UE to detach from
the source RN and start synchronizing with the target RN.
Meanwhile, packets that are in flight destined to this UE are
buffered at the eNB until the handover is complete.
MRNs move on roads, and their coverage obviously moves
with them, and hence, the problem of finding an MRN to
connect to is similar from the perspective of the UE to the
60
problem of finding the destination vehicle to deliver a packet
to in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETS). In this respect,
Road Side Units (RSUs) in VANETs are proposed in as
message routers, and with the information they hear from
vehicles in their ranges, the RSUs can estimate the location of
a packet destination. When an RSU needs to send a packet P
to a vehicle D, it is required to specify Ds current location
since D is moving. For this, each vehicle sends periodically
Hello packets to neighbors (including any RSUs in its
coverage area) containing information about its position,
speed, direction and timestamp. This enables the RSU to
estimate the location of D, and hence, chooses the best carrier
of P. This way, the packet is forwarded from a vehicle to
another until it reaches the destination. We will borrow ideas
from this work, mostly to determine the connection times
associated with the MRNs whose current coverage areas
include the concerned UE.
An analysis is performed in [7] to study the data gain provided
by a mobile relay node deployed on a public transportation
vehicle and serving UEs inside the vehicle. The penetration
loss between the outdoor and the inside of the vehicle has
been used as the decision factor to determine the data gain.
The results have shown that the gain in the data rate provided
by an MRN is not always guaranteed since a UE attached to a
relay and close to donor eNB could achieve lower data rate
gains than a UE directly attaches to an eNB.
The notion of Coordinated and Cooperative Relay Systems
(CCRS) is proposed in [8]. The CCRS system is introduced to
provide enhanced cellular coverage in highly populated public
transportation. The paper in [8] describes two architecture
alternatives for effective realization of CCRS. One of the
alternatives is based on the idea of interconnecting individual
RNs deployed together to cooperate and share the capacity of
individual mobile wireless backhaul links. The second
alternative is based on adopting a scalable RN equipped with a
distributed antenna system. According to the results, CCRS
allows a large number of cellular users on board of the
transportation vehicle to be served, while reducing the
complexity from both the UE and the network elements.
Finally, the authors of [9] have proposed a concept
similar to mobile femtocells stations. They have considered
two scenarios: fixed femtos with mobile UEs, and Mobile
femtos with mobile UEs. It was obvious in the results that
adding fixed or mobile femtocells has improved the
performance of the UEs. However, it was shown that mobile
femtos provide better performance than the fixed ones since
they can reach areas that are unreachable by fixed femtos.
As can be seen from the above coverage, an area that
is left untreated in the literature is the selection of MRNs by
cell edge UEs. More specifically, the issue concerns the
selection of the most suitable MRN to associate with.
Accordingly, our work that we describe in this paper proposes
a framework for selecting the most appropriate MRN, given
 2015 Eight International Workshop on Selected Topics in Mobile and Wireless Computing

severral factors, inccluding the UEEs position, th

he surroundingg MRN N so as to be seerved for an am mount of time tthat renders thee
road structure, and d the attributes of the MRN Ns in the areaa loweest probability of disconnecttion or handoover to another
(curreent positions, speeds, directtions). Our ob bjective is thee MRN N.
selectt the MRN wiith the most faavorable condittion, including g As illlustrated in Figgure 2, while mmoving, the MR RN can changee
signaal to noise ratio
o (SNR) and coonnection time.. its paath or directionn after reachinng an intersectiion. Dependingg
on wwhich road segm ment or segmeents the vehicle is driven, thee
III. PR
ROPOSED SYS
STEM MODEL
L time until the UE loses coveragge of this MR RN could vary y
A. PProposed system m design wideely. The exampple in the figuree shows a UE tthat is currently y
beingg covered by MRNk, and tthe latter is aapproaching an n
In ann eNB coveragee area, cell-edg ge users suffer from bad SNR R
interssection. After reaching the intersection, tthe vehicle can n
condiitions when theey are directly connected to the t eNB due to o
take one of three possible pathss, each of whiich results in a
the siignal attenuation and losses. For this, such h users are nott
differrent time of sttaying-connectted. As shownn, after crossing g
well served by the network and may m not be attaached to it. To o
Pointts 2, 3, and 4 on Paths 2, 3,, and 4, respecctively, the UE E
solvee this problem and serve thee largest possib ble number off
losess coverage. M Moreover, if thhe vehicle takkes Path 2 and d
pedesstrian users att the cell-edgee, we propose to implementt
becom ming disconneected from the UE after crosssing Point 2, iti
MRN Ns on the top of public tran nsportation vehicles such ass
reconnnects with thee UE after croossing the secoond intersection n
bussees and even tax xi cars becausse such vehiclees are likely to o
and ttaking Path 5, but it then it ddisconnects froom the UE after
have relatively low w velocities and
a they usuallly roam busy y
reachhing Point 5. Given the cuurrent location of the vehiclee
urbann and city roaads according to some defin ned schedules,,
MRN N (known to the UE with some uncertainty) and thee
thus bbecoming suitaable to play th he role of mobiile relay nodess
coorddinates of Poiints, 2, 3, 4, aand 5, the UE E can computee
as theey will providee the needed coverage
c in areeas that are nott
usingg its knowledgge of the road map the drivinng distances to o
adequuately covered by eNBs.
thesee points. Givenn the broadcasteed speed of thee MRN, the UE E
We aassume that th he vehicles equ uipped with reelay nodes aree
can ttranslate these distances into times. Out of tthese estimated d
equippped with a navigation system that maps Globall
timess, and averagge time of sstaying conneccted could bee
Positiioning System m (GPS) positio ons to road maaps in order to o
calcuulated and coonsequently aassociated witth MRNk. By y
enablle them to identify theiir positions in geometricc
compputing the averrage time of cconnection of eeach MRN thaat
coorddinates [11] [12 2], broadcast itt to the UEs, an nd then updatee
is in proximity, thee UE can now choose the moost suitable onee
the neeighboring eNB Bs.
to asssociate with. T
The decision off the UE in chooosing an MRN N
A sam mple general scenario is illlustrated in Fiigure 1, wheree
is theerefore definedd by an SNR threshold and by the longesst
each MRN vehicle knows its x an nd y position co oordinates, andd
time of connection.. Such a selectiion, which will be a weighted d
periodically broadcasts beacons th hat include possitions, speeds,,
averaage of the two metrics, may ssacrifice signall quality (SNR R)
directtions, and timmestamps. Thiss information allows a UEs too
for thhe sake of minnimizing as muuch as possible the probability y
knoww if an MRN is i moving tow ward it or away y from it. Thee
of dissconnections aand the handovver rate.
figuree shows a sceenario in which the current location of an n
MRN N is depicted along with itss possible fartthest locationss
(Poinnts 2, 3, 4, and 5) before the UE
U disconnectss from it due to o
exitinng its transmisssion coveragee. The transmisssion coveragee
of thee MRN is illusttrated using the dotted circless, and its rangee
is deppicted through the direct liness that connect the t UE to it.
In ouur work, we co onsider two meetrics for the UE U to select thee
most suitable MRN N to connect with.
w The first is
i the signal-too
noisee ratio (SNR) ata the UE, whille the second is i the expected d
time of connection.. The SNR can n be directly measured
m by thee
UE fofor nearby MRN Ns that are alreeady covering this UE or aree
expeccted to cover iti in the near future
f (i.e., by the latest timee
the UUE should startt transmitting data).
d On the other
o hand, thee
time of staying con nnected (time of connection n) needs to bee
compputed, and is more
m involved tot derive. Firstt, we highlightt
the immportance of this measure in the MRN-U UE association n
since a small (i.e., insufficient)
i coonnection timee may not meett
the UUE needs in fully transmittting and receiiving its data,,
Figg.1. MRN posssible paths in aan area of roadss showing its
especcially that the UE
U may not be b able to deterrmine the timee
farthest locatiions before thee UE disconneccts from it
requiired to complete its commun nication. Becau use of this, thee
UE sshould look to o maximize itts time of con nnection to an n

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 2015 Eight International Workshop on Selected Topics in Mobile and Wireless Computing
In our model, we assume that the users are in the most part
pedestrians and hence their relative speed is very small when
compared to those of the MRNs. We therefore consider the
cell edge users to be relatively static to the MRNs, and in
accordance with [5], we assume that the vehicle velocity and
direction are relatively constant over a 5 ms period [11]. From
previous systems studied in LTE, 5 ms is the time required for
accurate channel information and feedback delays at the eNB.
Moreover, even though the SNR is instantaneous, we consider
it to remains constant during the 5 ms time period.
B. SNR Variation
Any wireless channel is subject to fading and pathloss. For
this we use the channel coefficients Hi,j to capture the effects
of path-loss and shadowing. We assume that those coefficients
are varying slowly relative to the signaling interval. We define
the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNRi,j) between transmitter MRNi
and receiver UEj at the UE as follow:
H i, j Pi
SNRi, j (1)
N i W
Where Pi is the transmitted power from the MRNi, W is the
bandwidth and Ni represents the spectral densities of the
additive noise.
In order to model the SNR variation, we propose to use a
Markov Chain with three states that describe the channel
quality at the UE through the SNR value: E (Excellent), G
(Good), and B (Bad). Each state corresponds to a range of
values, where the SNR can be classified.
After collecting SNR values over many wireless channels, the
mean and the variance can be computed to provide the
operator the behavior of the SNR variation. From these
statistics, the operator can subsequently infer a threshold value
for the SNR. In the Markov Chain we assume that the
transitions from and to non-adjacent states do not occur
because the channel transitions are normally continuous.
We define Im as the measurement interval time and assume
that each state has the same average duration. To derive the
steady-state probability pss, we divide the time for which the
SNR is between [li, hi] by I where li and hi are the limits of the
allowed SNR values of State i. On the other hand, the
transition probabilities are computed by dividing the number
of state changes by the number of SNR measurements
collected during Im. The state diagram in Figure 2 shows the
states, and allows us to predict the next SNR value.
In the Markov model, we define the period of computing the
SNR as ISNR such that ISNR < Im and for every ISNR a new SNR
value is available. That is, during Im several SNR values are
collected, whereas every ISNR a new SNR value is computed,
thus allowing for deriving the rate of change of the SNR from
one state to another as follow:
62
1
SNRi
2
ROCcurrent (2)
n
Where SNRi is the SNR value recorded between the UE and
each MRN in its (MRNi). The decision for associating the UE
to MRNi is done periodically, each period T defined as follow:
speedavg ROCn
T Tn (3)
speedcurrent ROCcurrent
Where is the nominal LTE scheduling period where the
smallest scheduling unit in LTE refers to 1 ms [[10]
speedcurrent is the current speed of MRNi, ROCn is the SNR
nominal rate of change computed at average speed, and
ROCcurrent is calculated in Equation 2.
PFG
E G GG
PBG
EE
PGB
B
BB
Fig. 2. Markov Chain Model adopted in this work
C. Time of Connection
After deriving the SNR, we now turn our attention to compute
the UEs time of connection with the MRN, which is the
second metric employed by the UE to derive a weighted score
for each MRN it is in range with, and subsequently decide on
which MRN to attach to. To help make the derivations clearer,
we use the diagram of Figure 3, which is a zoom-in version of
Figure 1. MRNk is currently covering the UE and is
approaching Intersection I1, after which it will take one of
three possible paths, as shown in the figure. In our current
work, we assigned equal probabilities to the possible paths
that a vehicle will take upon reaching an intersection, but in
future work, we can assign probabilities that are functions of
some measure, like the average volume of traffic on each of
the outgoing paths of an intersection. Such data may be
obtained from a traffic authority database, or learned by Road
Side Units, which normally receive beacons from passing by
vehicles using the 802.11p protocol a designated protocol
for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure
communication. In the latter case, the RSUs can send this
information periodically via 802.11p to the MRNs, which in
 2015 Eight International Workshop on Selected Topics in Mobile and Wireless Computing

turn ccan relay themm to the UEs. OnO the other han nd, if an MRNN show
w the intersectiions outside thhe area but leaad to the roads
know ws with some certainty whicch path it willl take (learned d coverred by the areaa.
from previous trips)), it can include this informattion along with
h
the oother data discussed above to o the UE, thuus allowing thee
latterr to associate more
m definite probabilities
p to
o the outgoing
g
pathss of an intersection for this paarticular MRN.

Fig. 4. Depicction of roads aand intersectionns as graph

elemennts.
The actions of the UE in selecting an MRN aare summarized d
throuugh the Algoritthm in Figure 5, which we caall MRN selectt.
This algorithm co mputes the avverage travelleed distance by y
each MRN that is currently withhin the coveragge range of thee
Figg. 3. Representtation of area of
o coverage aro
ound the UE UE. IIt assumes thatt each MRN dooes not drive oon any one road d
moree than once durring a UE connnection sessionn, and hence, iti
Goingg back to Figu ure 3, we assuume that all MRNs
M have thee avoidds making cyycles in the ggraph while computing thee
same transmission range
r R, and so, when a UE needs to makee distannce. After calcculating the average distance for each MRN N
an asssociation decision, it draws a circle with itself
i being thee in thhe area, it usses the reportted average M MRN speed to o
centeer, and the raadius equal to o R. It then identifies thee comppute the expeccted connectioon time. Next,, the algorithm m
interssection points of
o this circle with
w the roads in i the range. In
n assiggns a score tto each MRN N based on the computed d
Figurre 3, these po oints are Pointts A, B, C, D, D and E; and d connnection time annd SNR, and then chooses the MRN with h
represent exist points beyond which w any MRN
M will losee the hhighest score. IIn assigning thhe score, it usees a weight to
o
conneection with this UE. Note th hat the interseection with thee the tiime and 1- too the SNR. Thhe selection forr the value of
road that the MRN N is currently on
o (i.e., Point O)
O is excluded d by thhe UE could deepend on severral factors, at thhe top of which h
since we assume th hat the MRN will
w not be maaking a U-turn. is th e estimated needed commuunication time for the UE to o
Usingg the informatiion about the roads
r (from thee map), the UEE remaain connected tto the network.
can ccompute the distance
d to eacch of these po oints from thee
current MRNs lo ocation, and next
n compute the times off
reachhing these points using thee MRNs rep ported averagee IV. NUMER
RICAL RESUL
LTS AND ANA
ALYSIS
speedds. Finally, thee UE uses the probabilities associated
a with
h In ouur simulation setup, we consiidered five MRRNs and twenty y
the ooutgoing pathss of each inteersection that the MRN can n cell-eedge UEs thatt are deployed in the eNodeB transmission n
reachh in the areaa, to computee a connectio on time. Thiss rangee. The MRNs aare transmittinng at a coveragge cell with 8000
proceedure is done for
fo each MRN thatt the UE is in i range with. m raddius. The SNR R at the UE is eevaluated from
m the formual as
we m mentioned earllier where the shadowing annd the pathloss
Towaard developing g an algorithm to
t realize the above
a steps, wee weree taken into cconsideration. The results thhat we presen nt
represent the area of
o coverage aro ound the UE ass a graph, withh beloww were obtaineed after performming one thoussand iterations.
the inntersections ass vertices and
d the roads as edges having g Fig. 6 shows thee cumulative distribution fuunction of thee
weighhts equal to the distance between the corresponding g averaage SNR evalluated at the UEs for 10, 15, 17 and 20 0
verticces. This repreesentation is depicted
d in Figure 4, which h MRN Ns. For the fouur number of M MRNs, the worrse SNR values
show
ws the area of coverage
c and all the roads that
t it overlapss are w
with low probaabilities, whichh shows the immprovement thaat
with. We note that for the compleeteness of the graph, we also o the ccell-edge userss realised as a result of depploying MRNss.
The SNR is assum med to be goodd enough wheen it is above a

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 2015 Eight International Workshop on Selected Topics in Mobile and Wireless Computing

threshold usually defined by the network operators. Some network without using Mobile Relay Nodes, or were suffering
channels, for example, start to operate when the SNR is as low from a very low SNR (<5 dB). Hence with Mobile Relay
as 5 dB [11], whereas others consider 10 dB to be a minimal Nodes the cell-edge users are connected to the network with a
acceptable SNR. better SNR. Moreover, Figure 6 shows that increasing the
number of the MRNs can result in a significant improvement
Algorithm MRNselect of the SNR and this is an expected result of increasing the
Define: MRNs density since the cell-edge users have more chance to
(xu, yu): UEs position on the map
R: MRNs transmission range find the suitable mobile relay to associate itself to it.
{MRN1, MRN2, , MRNM}: set of MRNs that UE is in range with
(xm, ym), sm, dm, SNRm: position of MRNm, speed, direction, SNR
G: graph representing the roads within a distance R of UE, and all
intersections connecting to these roads (illustrated in Figure 3).
V: vertices of G (intersections)
E: edges of G (roads with weights = associated distances)
|V| = number of vertices in V={vj, j=1, 2, , |V|}
|E| = number of edges (roads) in E={ek, k=1, 2, , |E|}
Visited = {visitedk, k=1, 2, , |E|} // flags for traversed edges
P={p(ej), j=1, 2, , |V|}: set of exit points
p(ej)=1 if the circle centered at (xu, yu) with radius R intersects ej
p(ej)=0 if the circle does not intersect ej
//in Figure 4, exit points are on roads R5, R6, R7, R8, R9, R10, R11
for each interval time
for each MRNm in the set of in-range MRNs
Initialize elements of Visited to 0s
identify ep on which MRNm is driving, given (xm, ym) and dm
determine vq that MRNm is heading into
Visitedp = 1
S(empty) //define a stack and empty it
dist=0 //average distance travelled by MRN
prob=1
z = vq //z will be used as a variable intersection
dist = distance ( (xm,ym), z) //distance to first intersection

//push into the stack (LIFO) a set of equal probabilities Fig. 6. CDF of average SNR for different number of MRNs
for count(downstream ens of z)
push (S, 1/count(downstream ens of z))
end for Regarding the transmission range of the MRNs, we observe
call Boundaries() from Fig. 7 that the MRN having the highest transmission
Tm = dist sm // connection time of UE with MRNm
end for each range can provide better SNR to the UEs. Decreasing the
Select MRNh with highest (Th/ T) + (1- ) (SNRh/SNRthreshold) range results in reducing the MRNs coverage area which
function Boundaries()
means that the number of UEs that might be connected to this
for each en downstream of z MRN will get smaller and tthat he SNR values will decline.
prob = pop(S) //remove most recent probability in S
if Visitedn is equal to 1 The expected Time of connection is the second criterion of
continue //go back to the top of loop (road already visited)
end if
UE-MRN association, where our goal is to have adequate time
Visitedn = 1 of connection. For this, the MRN is supposed to give time
if p(en) == 0 //there is no exit point on this road slots to each UE based on its weighted SNR and weighted
//distance(en) is the length of road en
dist = dist + prob distance(en) expected Time of connection. Fig. 8 shows that the average
z = downstream vertex of en time of connection varies between 20 and 170 seconds, and
for count(downstream ens of z)
push (S, prob 1/count(downstream ens of z)) that the probability for the time of connection to be greater
end for than 90 seconds is equal to 0.55. This time is significant in
call Boundaries()
else
LTE since it is needed for the System Information Blocks to
dist = dist + prob distance(z, ep(en)) carry relevant information for the UE to access a cell, or
end if perform cell re-selection [13]. We note that the time of
end for each
end function connection directly affects the handover rate, because the
larger the time of connection is, the less likely it is for the UE
Fig. 5. Algorithm for selecting most suitable MRN by the UE
to lose connection with the MRN while a session is going on;
and hence, the smaller the handover rate becomes.
According to Figure 6, and for the scenario where 10 MRNs
are emloyed, the probability of having an SNR>5 dB is 0.95,
while the probability of having SNR>10 dB is 0.9. These
values are significant since the UEs were not attached to the

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 2015 Eight International Workshop on Selected Topics in Mobile and Wireless Computing

1
Estimated SNR for Different Transmission Ranges

0.9 400m
550m
0.8 700m b
800m
0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40
Average SNR

Fig. 7. CDF of the SNR for different Transmission Ranges

Fig. 10. Decision Interval Time vs. ROC
1

0.9
We now propose a single metric L as a weighted average of
0.8
SNR and expected time of connection. We normalize the
0.7
expected SNR and the expected time. The metric L is defined
Estimated CDF

0.6
next in (4), where is a weight factor. Fig. 11 plots L in 3D
0.5 Pr(T<90s=0.45 with =7/8. We note that the parameter can be set by the
0.4 network operator experimentally in such a way that grants
0.3 UEs sufficient time of connection with the MRN that provides
0.2 high SNR levels. Moreover, the value of this parameter can be
0.1
learned by the UE subject to some criteria through a learning
0
algorithm that accounts for historical values and current
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Expected Time of Connection (s)
140 160 180 situational conditions.
Fig. 8. CDF of expected time of connection (4)
L 1
time I
Figures 9 and 10 show that the Decision Interval Time (Eq.
(3)) decreases when the current speed (Figure 9) and SNR rate
of change increase. This is logical since as the current speed
increases the UE should update its association more often. The
same obviously applies to the ROC (Figure 10).

1.0
a
0.8
0.92
0.6
0.85
0.4
0.76
0.2
0.0 0.67
0.2
0.4 0.48
0.35

0.15
0
0.2
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
0.4

0.2

Normalized SNR

Fig. 11. MRN selection metric as a function of SNR and time

of maintained connection with UE
Fig. 9. Decision Interval Time vs. speed

65
 2015 Eight International Workshop on Selected Topics in Mobile and Wireless Computing
V. CONCLUSION
Mobile relays can offer attractive advantages over fixed relays
in terms of reduced cost and their suitability to varying
network connection demand, especially when exploiting the
availability of public transportation vehicles that normally
roam the streets at relatively low speeds. We have proposed in
this paper a framework that allows UEs to select mobile relays
that offer the best combination of signal quality and
connectivity time duration. Our experimental results have
shown the ability of the UE when using our selection criteria
to choose the most suitable MRN. The decision is made with a
weighted MRN selection metric.
In conclusion, we have developed in this work a metric that
allows an edge UE to select an appropriate MRN that will
serve it with high quality cellular network services. What we
would like to improve on in future work is the generalization
of the derivation of time of connection, irrespective of the
underlying roads map and structure. For this we need to use a
model for the roads and utilize a mobility model for vehicular
movements. An additional activity is the automatic derivation
of the value of by the UE in such a way to meet a certain
criteria that could be specified by the user in some
configuration. This derivation could be based on an artificial
intelligence type of algorithm, like genetic algorithms or
neural network which learns from previous performances
(adequacy of selected MRNs) to tune the value of in a way
that renders the near-optimal tradeoff between the SNR level
and the time of connection. Moreover, and related to the
above, we will reexamine the normalization of these two
decision parameters to ensure that the denominators in
Equation 4 are the most suitable normalization parameters.
Needless to say that another future activity would be to run
more comprehensive simulations using a network simulator,
like NS3 [14], along with real world street maps. The
objective would be to generate more representative
performance results that could serve to verify the numerical
results obtained in this paper. Finally, another interesting
direction for the research would be to incorporate into our
framework a cooperative model for communications among
the MRNs themselves. Such a model could be used to
establish load balancing among the MRNs whenever possible,
and to advise the UE in case the selected MRN knows that it
will exit the network or will disconnect from the UE soon.
Furthermore, such an arrangement could potentially speed up
the MRN selection process, and move the selection algorithm
to the MRNs rather than running it on the UE, and this in turn
could reduce the battery energy consumption of the UE.
66
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