Handover Channel Allocation Based on Mobility Predictions

Abstract

Future cellular communication networks must use superior handover processing techniques to guarantee that continuity of connections during handover. Although previous studies have shown that the blocking handover probabilities can be reduced by exclusively reserving resources for handover users, this mechanism only results in marginal increase in overall system performance. This is due to the increased blocking probabilities suffered by new users as a result of channel being permanently allocated for handover users, even when no handover user requires them. In this paper we propose a method to dynamically allocate the handover channel after estimating the number of handover channels required by impending handover users at any given time. We use a mobility model to predict the user’s handover probabilities and a dynamic resource allocation algorithm to estimate the number of channels required to support the predicted handover traffic. Results of the study show that the proposed solution increases the system utilisation up to 5%.