CDMA cellular systems performance with fading, shadowing, and imperfect power control

Abstract

This paper addresses capacity estimation for cellular code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems, assuming the IS-95 standard as a reference. Extending a previous analytical method (Viterbi et al., 1994), we obtain a sequence of bounds on capacity, and then we introduce an accurate approximation to reduce computation complexity. The analysis accounts for interference internal and external to the reference cell, fading, shadowing, and imperfect power control. Outage probability is expressed in terms of the characteristic functions (cf's) of the interference and imperfect power control random variables (RV's). The interference contributions are computed on the basis of a Poisson distribution for the number of users in a lognormally shadowed channel. Results are provided for different channel conditions and are validated against Monte Carlo simulations. A comparison against previously published CDMA capacity estimates is carried out, aimed at clarifying some controversial issues. It is also confirmed that large system capacity is achievable under tight power control.