Stochastic Geometry Analysis of Ultra-Dense Networks: Impact of Antenna Height and Performance Limits

The concept of Ultra Dense Networks (UDN) is often seen as a key enabler of the next generation mobile networks. However, existing analysis of UDNs, including Stochastic Geometry, has not been able to fully determine the potential gains and limits of densification. In this paper we study performance of UDNs in downlink and provide new insights on the impact of antenna height and careful site selection on the network performance. We focus our investigation on the probability of coverage, average cell rate and average area spectral efficiency for networks with regular and random BS deployments. We show that under a path-loss model which considers antenna height there exists an upper limit on network performance which is dependent on the path-loss model parameters. Our analysis shows an interesting finding that even for over-densified networks a non-negligible system performance can be achieved.