Dereje Hailemariam (PhD)Umerulfaruqe Shehseid2023-12-142023-12-142023-09http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/945The rapid growth of global data traffic is putting a strain on long term evolution(LTE) networks, which are struggling to keep up with demand. Carrier aggregation (CA) is a promising technique to improve the throughput of LTE networks by combining multiple carrier components to create a wider bandwidth. However, CA can also lead to traffic imbalance between the carrier components, which can degrade throughput. This thesis proposes a multi-objective optimization technique based on genetic algorithm to balance the load across carrier components in LTE-Advanced networks. The proposed technique is evaluated using simulations in MATLAB and WinProp, a software tool for radio propagation analysis. The data used in this study was collected from ethio telecom. The data includes engineering parameters such as azimuth, electrical and mechanical tilt, default transmit power, cell-level and user-level traffic. A hotspot area in Addis Ababa around Bole was selected for the study. The area has 22 eNodeBs and 66 cells. Specifically, the joint Tx Power with Electrical Tilt technique provides a 2.41 bps/Hz improvement in spectral efficiency over the Tx Power technique, a 103.9 % improvement in cell edge throughput, and a 12.5 % reduction in load imbalance in the cell edge case. In the cell mid case, the improvement is 61.34 %, 14.53 %, and 8.3 %, respectively. And in the cell center case, the improvement is 18.84 %, 2.25 %, and 1.5 %, respectively and also for Signal-to-Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR) has improved with 105.72% and 63.51% for cell edge and cell center respectively. The limitations of the study include the fact that the uplink side was not considered, more than three carrier components were not considered, and the load balance between non-CA and CA was not considered. The findings of this thesis can be used to improve the design and implementation of LTE-Advanced networks. The recommendation of this study is that the operator should deploy the proposed technique, Significantly improve spectral efficiency, average throughput, and load imbalance, especially in the cell edge case.It is worthy to effectively use spectrum resources rather than adding more carrier components.en-USload balance, Carrier Aggregation throughput,Tx power,Electrical Tilt,Multiobjective optimization, Carrier Component,per CC based optimizationThesis