Effect of LOS/NLOS Propagation on Area Spectral Efficiency and Energy Efficiency of Small-Cells

TL;DR

This paper examines how combined LOS and NLOS propagation models influence the spectral and energy efficiency of dense small-cell networks, revealing complex behaviors and optimal densities not seen with single propagation models.

Contribution

It introduces a combined LOS/NLOS propagation model and analyzes its impact on ASE and energy efficiency, highlighting new behaviors in dense small-cell networks.

Findings

ASE shows superlinear and sublinear behavior at different densities

Energy efficiency has a global maximum at an optimal density

LOS/NLOS effects significantly alter network performance predictions

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the effect of Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) propagation on the Area Spectral Efficiency (ASE) and on the energy efficiency of dense small-cell networks. We show that including both LOS and NLOS propagation in the path-loss model provides a completely different picture of the behaviours of ASE and energy efficiency than what would be observed in case of either LOS or NLOS propagation only. In particular, with combined LOS/NLOS path-loss, the ASE exhibits superlinear and sublinear behaviour at low and high cell densities, respectively. In addition, the energy efficiency as a function of the cell density has a global maximum and is not a monotonically increasing function like in case of LOS or NLOS propagation only. Based on our findings, we claim that Line-of-Sight (LOS) and Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) propagations play an important role in studying the performance of extremely dense small-cell networks.