Analysis of Handover Failures in Heterogeneous Networks with Fading

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical model to evaluate handover failure probabilities in heterogeneous cellular networks, considering fading, shadowing, and vehicular user mobility, validated through simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a new analytical framework incorporating fading effects into handover performance analysis in HetNets, supported by simulation validation.

Findings

Fading significantly degrades handover performance in HetNets.

The model accurately predicts handover failure probabilities under various conditions.

Simulation results confirm the analytical model's effectiveness.

Abstract

The handover process is one of the most critical functions in a cellular network, and is in charge of maintaining seamless connectivity of user equipments (UEs) across multiple cells. It is usually based on signal measurements from the neighboring base stations (BSs), and it is adversely affected by the time and frequency selectivity of the radio propagation channel. In this paper, we introduce a new model for analyzing handover performance in heterogeneous networks (HetNets) as a function of vehicular user velocity, cell size, and mobility management parameters. In order to investigate the impact of shadowing and fading on handover performance, we extract relevant statistics obtained from a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)-compliant HetNet simulator, and subsequently, we integrate these statistics into our analytical model to analyze handover failure probability under fluctuating channel conditions. Computer simulations validate the analytical findings, which show that fading can significantly degrade the handover performance in HetNets with vehicular users.