A novel handover decision-making algorithm for HetNets

This paper aims to improve the handover performance in the heterogeneous networks (HetNet). Since achieving high data rates, low signaling load, and better coverage area are highly dependent on the number of handovers, reducing the number of unnecessary handovers is crucial for both mobile users and the whole network. In this paper, a new decision-making algorithm based on joint traffic and propagation metrics is proposed for HetNets that can reduce the number of unnecessary handovers in comparison with the traditional handover algorithms especially when the femtocell assignment probability is relatively high. We further analyze the handover probability for the proposed scheme which is in a close agreement with simulation results. Simulation results show that a higher assignment probability to femtocell BS is achieved in the proposed algorithm. We also show that the proposed scheme reduces the number of unnecessary handovers compared to the conventional RSS-α algorithm.