On the Performance Analysis of UE-VBS-Based Wireless Communications: Network Outages, Resource Utilization, and Optimization

Abstract

User Equipment as a Virtual Base Station (UE-VBS) computing paradigm represents a significant advancement in wireless networking. It enables User Equipment (UE) to form: i) Virtual Base Stations (VBSs) by dynamically integrating Cluster Heads (referred to as UE-VBSCH), or Virtual Relays (referred to as UE-VBSRL), in the far-edge domain. This research focuses on enhancing the Quality of Service (QoS) (and thereby improving user experience) in networks supported by UE-VBS computing through outage prediction, network optimization, and advanced wireless techniques. In addition, the paper presents a detailed outage probability analysis and explores the trade-off between efficiency and reliability (namely, spectral and energy efficiency and link-level reliability (outage probability)), which are core contributions of this work. For a representative urban density of 2 UEs per m2, a single-hop UE-VBS slice lowers the outage probability from 0.78 to 0.23, raises the peak area-spectral efficiency to 4.3 bits−1 Hz−1 ( ≈4.8× the baseline), and delivers an energy efficiency of 2.4×105 bit J−1 ( ≈4.6× improvement). These concrete figures substantiate the claimed gains and illustrate how UE-VBS computing simultaneously improves efficiency and reliability. Specifically, it provides a thorough examination of UE-VBS computing’s capacity to enhance service quality, reduce congestion, and promote energy efficiency. Also, it empirically confirms UE-VBS computing’s superior performance, including mitigating coverage gaps coverage gaps are localized areas inside a nominally covered cell where received SINR falls below the outage threshold because of shadowing or cell-edge distance), optimizing network traffic, and reducing battery consumption compared to traditional networks/non-UE-VBS computing-supported networks. Enhanced QoS aims to minimize the challenges associated with restricted network coverage, ensuring consistent data transmission rates and improving overall user satisfaction. The potential exists for adopting effective network traffic offloading to mitigate the heavy traffic on primary base stations known as Next Generation Node B (gNodeB). Consequently, this can result in enhanced spectrum utilization and heightened data throughput. Leveraging UE-VBS computing also contributes to power conservation and fosters sustainability.