Real-time cellular activity monitoring using LTE radio measurements

As the licensing and deployment of long term evolution (LTE) systems are ramping up, the study of cellular activity in LTE systems is essential to better understand the spectrum needs and make informed decisions on mobile device density over time. Meanwhile, there are limited tools to non-intrusively monitor mobile device density in real-time. Cellular carriers gather such data through their base stations; however, this data is proprietary with restricted access due to privacy concerns. In this paper, we present a toolset that non-intrusively monitors the cellular activity and senses the mobile device density from over-the-air LTE radio measurements without violating the privacy of mobile users. This information can be passively extracted from the downlink control channel information messages in the LTE physical layer protocol. A hardware prototype has been developed in our laboratory to measure and analyze the downlink LTE radio signals and provide real-time insights to the cellular activity and mobile device count.