Alexander Muhangi
Graduate_Researchers
Alexander is a graduate with an honors degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Makerere University and also holds a Masters of science in the same field at Makerere University. He has a demonstrated history of working in the telecommunications industry specifically in radio network planning and as a graduate researcher in netlabs!UG with skills in research and development (R&D) and data analytics. His research interests are broadly centered on mobile wireless communications with emphasis on energy efficient communication technologies designed to address the environmental impact of conventional communication systems and networks. He has participated in various service and outreach programs aimed at expanding ICT awareness and services in developing countries like Uganda. His future research prospects are geared towards enhancing existing approaches and developing novel ones for improving the quality of service of communications systems as an enabler for the country's sustainable growth.
My Publications / Research
A spatio-temporal sleep mode approach to improve energy efficiency in small cell DenseNets
Paper Abstract—Data traffic has been increasing exponentially and operators have to upgrade their networks to meet the prevailing demand. This effort entails deploying more base stations (BSs) to meet the increasing traffic. The resulting capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operational expenditures (OPEX) have limited operator revenues. In addition to the energy costs, the associated greenhouse gas emissions have raised environmental concerns. In this paper, we use system-level simulations to investigate different sleep mode mechanisms that can address both capacity and energy efficiency (EE) objectives in dense small cell networks (DenseNets). These sleep mode approaches are applied to a longterm traffic profile that is obtained from real world network traffic. We then design a mechanism that determines the required BS density in response to the variable long-term traffic profile. Our results reveal that significant energy savings are possible when sleep mode mechanisms are applied based on the prevailing traffic in both time and space domains.
Base Station Location Optimization in 5G Dense HetNets
Paper Presented at The 5th National Conference on Communications held in Kampala, Uganda, from 17th - 18th October 2019.
Paper Abstract: Over the last few years, traffic demand has increased exponentially and forecasts show that this trend will continue. Operators have to expand and upgrade their networks to provide the required capacity. As we head into the era of 5G, cellular networks will continue to become ever more heterogeneous in nature, characterized by a dense deployment of small cells. As base stations (BSs) become smaller, they enable more aggressive frequency reuse which results into enhanced capacity. In addition, location and deployment constraints on such cells reduce. It is envisaged that small BSs (sBSs) will be deployed easily on street furniture, simple poles, etc. When the physical locations options increase, the operator ought to pick the best locations for deployment. In this paper, we propose a location optimization algorithm that can be used to choose the best locations subject to a network capacity constraint. Our results show that when the algorithm is applied, the capacity targets can be achieved with few sBSs. In addition, the algorithm significantly enhances the energy efficiency (EE) of the dense heterogeneous network (HetNet).