TY - GEN
T1 - Horizontal Soft Handover Management in Cell-Free Massive MIMO Networks
AU - Khan, Murad
AU - Joumaa, Chibli
AU - Alothman, Basil
AU - Kim, Dongkyun
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 IEEE.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Efficient system performance enhancement and reduction of signaling overhead in Cell-Free (CF) networks can be achieved through the strategic design of horizontal soft handover management. However, in a typical CF environment, Access Points (AP) are often collocated at short distances, posing challenges to the efficient design of horizontal soft handovers. Furthermore, utilizing traditional handover techniques in such scenarios can lead to improper handovers and incorrect AP selection. We propose a horizontal handover technique to help CF networks overcome these challenges. The proposed technique comprises three key components: 1) handover triggering, 2) AP selection, and 3) AP clustering. To minimize scanning delays, the handover triggering mechanism relies on sharing Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) values among users. Additionally, AP selection and clustering are tailored based on the applications running on the Mobile Node (MN) device. The system is tested across AP distribution scenarios to assess handover delay, throughput, and packet loss. The performance evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed system, particularly in dense AP environments with varying numbers of MNs.
AB - Efficient system performance enhancement and reduction of signaling overhead in Cell-Free (CF) networks can be achieved through the strategic design of horizontal soft handover management. However, in a typical CF environment, Access Points (AP) are often collocated at short distances, posing challenges to the efficient design of horizontal soft handovers. Furthermore, utilizing traditional handover techniques in such scenarios can lead to improper handovers and incorrect AP selection. We propose a horizontal handover technique to help CF networks overcome these challenges. The proposed technique comprises three key components: 1) handover triggering, 2) AP selection, and 3) AP clustering. To minimize scanning delays, the handover triggering mechanism relies on sharing Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) values among users. Additionally, AP selection and clustering are tailored based on the applications running on the Mobile Node (MN) device. The system is tested across AP distribution scenarios to assess handover delay, throughput, and packet loss. The performance evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed system, particularly in dense AP environments with varying numbers of MNs.
KW - Access Point
KW - Cell-Free Networking
KW - Handover
KW - Mobility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85202723818&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/ICUFN61752.2024.10625278
DO - 10.1109/ICUFN61752.2024.10625278
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85202723818
T3 - International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks, ICUFN
SP - 460
EP - 465
BT - ICUFN 2024 - 15th International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks
PB - IEEE Computer Society
T2 - 15th International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks, ICUFN 2024
Y2 - 2 July 2024 through 5 July 2024
ER -