Robust Vertical Handover Decision based on Two Thresholds and Multiple Parameters

Abstract

High Quality of Service is one of the most highlighted expectations of the next generation. Providing users with full coverage and variant demands, even during their movement between adjacent cells, is considered challenging tasks in 5G. The high-speed mobility, one of the transportation’s trends in the future, relocates this challenge to a different level. This work suggests a mechanism of sequential steps to strengthen the handover process. Considering two threshold levels rather than the traditional solo one is used to distinguish between the phase of the triggering the handover process and making the handover decision. Taking advantage of Doppler frequency is also used to minimize the target cells list. Finally, a function combined of different weighted measures taken from the target list to make the vertical handover decision. Adopting more metrics, in addition to the conventional received signal strength, reduces the number of handover trials between the cells and overcomes the ping-pong phenomenon. Cooperation between neighbor cells is required to re-allocate the resources in a manner that ensures the fairness between the users and also to successfully perform a necessary handover. Thus, the short target cells’ list degrades the complexity, the required processing time and the total consumed power by the overall system.