An Efficient CoMP-based Handover Scheme for Evolving Wireless Networks

Inter-Cell Interference (ICI) will be one of main problems for degrading the performance of future wireless networks at the cell edge. This adverse situation will become worst in the presence of dense deployment of micro and macro cells. In this context, the Coordinated Muli-Point (CoMP) technique was introduced to mitigate ICI in evolving wireless networks and increase their network performance at the cell edge. Even though the CoMP technique provides satisfactory solutions of various problems at the cell edge, nevertheless existing CoMP handover schemes do not prevent unnecessary handover initialisation decisions. In this paper, a new CoMP-based handover scheme is proposed in order to minimise unnecessary handover decisions at the cell edge in conjunction with signal measurements such as Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and Received Signal Received Quality (RSRQ). A combination of calculations of RSRP and RSRQ facilitate a credible decision making process of CoMP mode and handover mode at the cell edge. Typical numerical experiments indicate that by triggering the CoMP mode, the overall network performance is constantly increase as the number of unnecessary handovers is progressively reduced.