Radio resource management for integrated services in multi-radio access networks

Several disparate types of radio access networks are currently active in the wireless communication environment. For example, GSM has achieved great success via global coverage and more than two billion subscribers worldwide since June 2006; UMTS is on the way of worldwide deployment and competes with other technologies to fulfil the increasing demand of high speed real-time and non-real-time services; WLAN has become successful in non-real-time service provision since several years and is currently redesigned to provide real-time services. New up-and-coming radio access technologies, e. g. WiMAX, will contribute to the wireless communication as well. However, these various radio access networks are currently separate, or only loosely coupled with each other if they belong to a same operator. The next generation wireless network is envisaged to be based on various complementary and cooperating radio access networks in a heterogeneous environment. How to utilise radio resources for multiservices in a coordinated way is a major issue in such multi-radio access networks. This thesis presents the multi-radio resource management which aims to optimise the capacity as well as the service quality via initial multi-radio access and intersystem handover.