Cellular Coverage Map as a Voronoi Diagram

Abstract

The mobile cellular network coverage is normally represented by means of hexagonal topology. This structure is useful for planning frequency reuse but not appropriate for the analysis of coverage and traffic operations as handoff, paging and registration. This paper presents the service area coverage of a cellular network as an ordered order-k multi-plicatively weighted Voronoi diagram. Radio parameters such as antenna height, transmission power and specific-environment propagation characteristics are used as the basis to define the proximity rule in order to generate the Voronoi diagram. The cell boundaries are the edges of the Voronoi diagram. They are defined by comparison of the radii of adjacent cells. The proximity between a mobile and a base station is determined by means of a Euclidean distance weighted by propagation parameters.