A Location

Management Problem
Dr. Reynold Cheng
Hong Kong Polytechnic University

This lecture is based on the lecture slides of Prof. Henry Chan (with his
permission), and the paper “Location management for next generation
personal communication networks” by V. Wong and V. Leung, IEEE Network,
Sep/Oct 2000.

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Probability basics
 Probability:
 no. of concerned outcomes/no. of possible outcomes e.g.,
P(getting a “K” from a pack of playing cards)=4/52=1/13.
 We always have P(not A)=1-P(A).
 If A and B are independent, we have:
 P(A and B)=P(A) x P(B)
 P(A or B)=P(A) + P(B)
 Denote P(x) as the probability that the outcome is x (a
number). We have:
 ∑ P(x)=1
 Mean=∑ xP(x)

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Markov chain basics
 System states: e.g., location of someone
 Markov process: next state depends on current state
only
 Discrete time Markov process: state changes at t, t+1,
t+2, …
 Continuous time Markov process: state changes at
any time
 Transition probability:
 P(next state | current state)
 Stationary probability: the probability that the system
will be at a certain state (independent of time)
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A simple example : HSI
 It is modeled as a discrete time system (change
daily).

P( R | R) P( F | F )  Two possible states (at the end of a day): Rise

P( F | R) (R) or Fall (F) relative to the previous trading
day.

Rise Fall  Assume that it is a Markov process.

 Define the transition probabilities as shown in

P( R | F ) the figure.

 Define the stationary probabilities as S(Fall)

and S(Rise).

 Question: what is the probability that the HSI

will rise or fall on a certain day (i.e., compute
S(Fall) and S(Rise))?
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HSI example (cont’d)
 The equations to be solved are:

S ( Rise) = S ( Rise) P( R | R ) + S ( Fall ) P ( R | F )

S ( Fall ) = S ( Rise) P( F | R) + S ( Fall ) P ( F | F )
S ( Rise) + S ( Fall ) = 1

We can compute that:

P( Rise | Fall )
S ( Rise) =
P( Rise | Fall ) + P ( Fall | Rise)
P( Fall | Rise)
S ( Fall ) =
P( Rise | Fall ) + P ( Fall | Rise)

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HSI example (cont’d)
 Suppose that

P( R | R ) = 0.3 P( F | R ) = 0.7
P ( F | F ) = 0 .4 P ( R | F ) = 0 .6

The stationary probabilities:

0.6 6
S ( Rise) = =
0.6 + 0.7 13
0 .7 7
S ( Fall ) = =
0.6 + 0.7 13

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A location management problem
 There are four cells: A, B, C, D.

 We are concerned with the location

(A, B, C, D) of the person at t, t+1,
t+2 …

 The person may remain in the same

cell or walk to another cell.

 The transition probability is:

P( j | i ) i, j ∈ { A, B, C , D}
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Problem
 Assume that we know the transition probabilities
P ( j | i ) i, j ∈ { A, B, C , D}. We want to work out the stationary
probability S ( j ), j ∈ { A, B, C , D} .

 We have these equations:

S ( j ) = S ( A) P ( j | A) + S ( B) P( j | B ) + S (C ) P ( j | C ) + S ( D ) P ( j | D )
j ∈ { A, B, C , D}
S ( A) + S ( B ) + S (C ) + S ( D ) = 1

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Equations
The equations to be solved are:
S ( A)( P ( A | A) − 1) + S ( B) P( A | B) + S (C ) P( A | C ) + S ( D) P( A | D ) = 0
S ( A) P ( B | A) + S ( B)( P( B | B) − 1) + S (C ) P( B | C ) + S ( D) P( B | D ) = 0
S ( A) P (C | A) + S ( B ) P (C | B) + S (C )( P(C | C ) − 1) + S ( D ) P (C | D) = 0
S ( A) P ( D | A) + S ( B ) P ( D | B) + S (C ) P( D | C ) + S ( D )( P ( D | D) − 1) = 0
S ( A) + S ( B ) + S (C ) + S ( D ) = 1

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An example
 The transition probability matrix is:
 0 .6 0 .1 0.2 0.1 
 
 0 .1 0.7 0.1 0.1 
P( j | i) = 
0.05 0 .2 0.7 0.05 
 
 0 .1 0 .2 0.1 0.6 

 The equations are:
− 0.4 × S ( A) + 0.1× S ( B) + 0.05 × S (C ) + 0.1× S ( D ) = 0
0.1× S ( A) − 0.3 × S ( B ) + 0.2 × S (C ) + 0.2 × S ( D ) = 0
0.2 × S ( A) + 0.1× S ( B ) − 0.3 × S (C ) + 0.1× S ( D ) = 0
0.1× S ( A) + 0.1× S ( B ) + 0.05 × S (C ) − 0.4 × S ( D ) = 0
S ( A) + S ( B ) + S (C ) + S ( D ) = 1
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Solution
 The solution is:

7
S ( A) =
41
15
S ( B) =
41
12
S (C ) =
41
7
S ( D) =
41

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Strategies for locating the person
 Assume that the paging cost is one per cell.
 The cost for locating the person:
 Page all cells at the same time:
 cost = 4
 Page the cells A,B,C,D, one at a time:
 expected cost = ?
 Page the cells one at a time, the most probable cell
first:
 expected cost = ?
 Any better strategy?

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The Markov Model with Movement
History
 When a MS leaves a cell, the probability
that it will move to a neighboring cell is
based on the set of cells through which
the mobile terminal has traveled
 Incorporatesthe concept of a trip in which the
MS may follow a particular path to a
destination

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Other Mobility Models
 Fluid flow, Gravity, Gaussian, Random
walk, Markov, Finite context…
 Attempt to capture the pattern of
movement of users, in order to improve
network performance
 See “Location management for next
generation personal communication
networks” for details.

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