A handover statistics based approach for Cell Outage Detection in self-organized Heterogeneous Networks

Recently, densified small cell deployment with overlay coverage through Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) has emerged as a viable solution for 5G mobile networks. Cell Outage Detection (COD) which is the essential functionality in Self-Organizing Network (SON) is designed to autonomously deal with unexpected faults. Typical methods for detecting cell outage are usually based on Manual Drive Tests (MDT). However, it is difficult to detect small cell outage by MDT measurements in HetNets, because the User Equipment (UE) served by these small cells can switch to the macro cell and keep the Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) values normal. To resolve this issue, we propose a COD architecture based on the handover statistics. Our model concentrates on cell outage detection in a two-tier heterogeneous network. We process sequential handover statistics spatially and temporally in conjunction with data mining methods. Also, an improved LOF algorithm (M-LOF) is proposed to enhance the detection performance based on handover statistics. To evaluate the system performance, a set of tests has been carried out using some reasonable assumptions and network simulator we designed. The results of simulation show that our system is more effective to detect cell outage in comparison to the architecture using MDT measurements.