Simulation tool to evaluate Radio Resource Management algorithms for UMTS

This paper presents a system level simulator that has been developed with OPNET in order to evaluate the behavior of different Radio Resource Management (RRM) strategies in UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) for 3rd Generation (3G) mobile communications under multiuser, multiservice and multicellular scenarios. The simulator includes models for the User Equipment, Base Station and Radio Network Control nodes. The functionalities that are implemented are those that deal with RRM functions (i.e., admission and congestion control, packet scheduling, handover control, power control and transport format management at MAC level) as well as those related with propagation, mobility and traffic generation models. Several performance statistics both in vector and scalar types are obtained.