A Stochastic Geometry Analysis of Multiconnectivity in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The shared resource access wireless communication system is regarded as an efficient paradigm that allows the mobile network operators to have extended coverage and satisfy their subscribers' high capacity demands while keeping the capital and operational expenditure in check. On the other hand, dual connectivity (DC), a small cell enhancement feature, allows the subscribers to have two simultaneous connections increasing throughput and enhancing mobility robustness. The coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission/reception and user-centric virtual cell (VC) improve the signal quality and performance. For all of these mechanisms, the user needs to be under the coverage of multiple base stations (BSs) concurrently. Because of the random nature of the wireless links and distribution of BSs in a network, the practicability/operability of DC and CoMP/VC for a typical user under such random operating conditions (both topological and wireless link randomness) needs to be adequately evaluated. In this paper, we take an extensive look at this problem exploiting tools from Poisson point process theory and stochastic geometry and derive easy-to-evaluate tractable integral expressions for essential performance metrics such as DC and CoMP/VC coverage probability of a typical user in downlink cellular. Unlike most of the existing works, we consider a signal propagation loss model, where the selection of the strongest (not necessarily the closest) BS that serves the typical user is perturbed by arbitrary shadowing, not by fading, i.e., we consider a fading-averaged signal propagation loss process. We derive the coverage probability as a function of various system parameters such as BS density, fading parameters, the cardinality of the coordination set for CoMP/VC, etc. We verify the analytical analysis with simulation results.