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Abdulraqeb Alhammadi1, Mardeni Roslee1*, Mohamad Yusoff Alias1, Ibraheem Shayea2, Saddam Alraih3
1
Center for Wireless and Technology, Multimedia University, Cyberjaya, Selangor, Malaysia
2
Istanbul Technical University, Electronics and Communication Engineering Department, Istanbul, Turkey
3
National University of Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
mardeni.roslee@mmu.edu.my
Abstract— Deploying ultra-dense small-cell base stations in the
next-generation mobile networks is one of the most expected ap-
proaches to overcome the uncertainty of millimeter wave (mm-
wave) communications. Mobility management is a critical issue
that requires much concern to achieve seamless and highly reliable
connection through user mobility. Handover in heterogeneous net-
works (HetNets) has gained attention, especially when 5G ultra-
dense small cells coexist with the current 4G networks. Handover
failure is one of the main issues in mobility, and it can be avoided
by adjusting handover control parameters (HCPs): time-to-trig-
ger (TTT) and handover margin (HOM). In this paper, we pro-
posed dynamic HCPs in HetNets (LTE-A and mm-wave networks)
with dense small cells. The proposed algorithm was compared with
different settings of HCPs for different user mobile speed scenar-
ios. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm sig-
nificantly reduces the probability of ping pong handovers and ra-
dio link failure, thus improving network performance.
Index Terms—Mobility management, small cells, HetNets.
I. INTRODUCTION
Several decades have passed since the first generation of
mobile wireless communication (1G) was established. Nowa-
days, mobile wireless communication is one of the most widely
used technology. The evolution of mobile wireless communi-
cation generation series gradually changes. Only voice and text
data were supported in 1G, but video and internet streaming are
supported in the current generation of mobile networks (4G).
Despite the high speed and numerous features provided by 4G,
the next network generation (5G) will signify an important rev-
olution in the technology field, especially in mobile wireless
communication.
The 5G mobile wireless communication will provide a num-
ber of significant features, such as a high data rate (up to 10
Gbps), a remarkably low latency (less than 1 ms round-trip
time) and a high bandwidth in the unit area [1]. Researchers and
developers are working on developing 5G in all its areas to
achieve and meet the 5G requirements and prepared for its re-
lease in the prospected year, which is 2020. Mobility manage-
ment is an important area in the 5G research field [2]. Mobility
  !"#$%%%
management is a major function in mobile wireless communi-
cation; it allows mobile devices to work in global systems for
mobile communications (GSM) and universal mobile telecom-
munications system (UMTS). Mobility management primarily
traces and tracks mobile location and delivers services, such as
calls and SMS. Given the movements and changes in the loca-
tion of a mobile device while a call or connection is in progress,
this action must be performed smoothly without disconnecting
the connection or dropping the call. A mechanism called the
handover enables mobile devices to stay connected to the core
network through transferring from one channel to another.
Although remarkable improvements have been provided by
the 4G system, several issues related to mobility management
became more complicated in heterogeneous networks (Het-
Nets). These issues must be solved efficiently to provide seam-
less and high reliable connection through user mobility. Hand-
over control parameters (HCPs) are one of the major challenges
facing the implementation of 4G and future systems; they must
be adjusted according to dynamic events.
In this paper, a dynamic-HCP (D-HCP) algorithm is pro-
posed to address handover parameter optimization (HPO)
based on handover types (too early handover, too late handover
and wrong cell handover). The D-HCP aims to reduce the radio
link failure (RLF) and handover ping-pong probability (HPPP).
The rest of the paper starts by giving background knowledge
and related works in Section 2. Section 3 provides details on
the HPO. Section 4 presents the proposed algorithm for Het-
Nets. Section 5 presents the evaluation of handover perfor-
mance metrics that must be used for system evaluation. Section
6 evaluates and discusses the simulation results in different sce-
narios. Finally, the last section presents the conclusions and
suggests several points for potential future works.
II. BACKGROUND AND RELATED WORKS
Mobility management is one of the most important areas in
HetNets, which are still under development and enhancement
to provide a seamless communication. Two different mobility
managements exist in cellular networks: user equipment (UE)
mobility with respect to spectrum and UE mobility with respect
to base station (BS). Spectrum mobility is more related to spec-
trum utilization in cognitive radio technology [3, 4], whereas
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mobility with respect to BS maintains the connection between
UE and BS, and the UE moves from one BS to another.
Different techniques and algorithms have been applied to
handover, and each one exhibits a different performance and
accuracy. Researchers proposed a highly efficient approach for
automatic optimization handover; it provides self-organizing
handover for LTE networks [5]. This technique aims to reduce
unnecessary amounts of ping-pong handovers. Although this
approach achieves almost zero drop call ratio for the complete
simulation time, it features a slow response time (after 60 s).
Other studies have proposed a methodology for certain radio
frequency conditions and different scenarios in which handover
parameters are flexibly customized depending on radio fre-
quency conditions [6]. The BS in this technique is built-in with
a learning machine and data mining techniques to determine
and identify the received signal strength and characteristic pat-
terns. The spectral efficiency at the cell-edge is improved, and
the downlink data rate in a certain loading scenario can reach
up to 150% better than the traditional approach of selecting a
set of handover parameters.
Other scholars proposed a new green procedure using self-
optimization self-organizing network (SON) function which
minimizes energy consumption in LTE-Advanced/5G [7]. In
general, this technique reduces energy consumption in all sce-
narios, but shows better results when the mobile device moves
at low speed. A new handover detection self-organizing-hand-
over parameter (HD-SOHP) based on reinforcement learning
(RL) concept was introduced by [8]. Call drop decreases due to
effective session handovers. The performance of using HD-
SOHP improved up to twice as that when using SON-based
handover techniques in terms of call drop handover failure and
ping-pong and support mobility speed of up to 120 km/h.
Wei Zheng et al. [9] developed a handover parameter adjust-
ing-based mobility robustness optimization scheme based on
gradient algorithm; this scheme aims to reduce unnecessary
handovers (UHOs) and RLFs caused by too late handover, too
early handover or wrong handover in open access femtocells.
They also introduced a cost function incorporating UHOs and
wrong handovers for femtocell networks. The simulation re-
sults show that the proposed scheme can achieve reduction of
RLF ratio and UHO ratio with minimal handover signaling
modifications.
III. HANDOVER PARAMETERS OPTIMIZATION
Mobility management becomes essential in wireless mobile
communications, requiring seamless communication at differ-
ent mobility levels. Radio resource management maintains the
radio link connection between UEs and BSs within the cover-
age area by handing over the UE from one cell to another. The
handover refers the process of establishing a new radio link
connection from the source to the target BSs [7, 8]. Therefore,
40
in non-heterogeneous wireless networks, the mobile UE main-
tains its radio connection when it moves within the cells by per-
forming a handover process from the serving eNB to another
eNB that provides better signal quality. However, in HetNets
with different cell types, handover maintains the UE connection
with eNB while moving through different cells. Thus, the hand-
over will become more complex and require efficient algorithm
as each cell features different specifications, such as cell radius,
transmission power and path loss model. Fig 1 demonstrates an
example of a UE trajectory between macro and small cells. Ef-
ficient handover can support service continuity and enhance
UE throughput, ideally, without any service interruption. LTE-
A system introduces features to enhance system performance,
such as improved handover mechanisms that provide short
handover interruption time. In addition, the LTE-A system sup-
ports mobility speeds of up to 500 km/h [10].
Fig. 1. Handover concept in HetNets
The handover algorithm could be divided into three catego-
ries, namely, reference signal-received power (RSRP), RSRP
with threshold and handover margin (HOM) and time-to-trig-
ger (TTT) interval. In the first category, handover decision al-
gorithm is used based on RSRP only, which decides to initiate
the handover procedure once the target RSRP becomes greater
than that of the serving RSRP. In the second category, the hand-
over decision algorithm is constructed based on the RSRP with
a threshold level. That is, the handover decision procedure is
initiated upon fulfilling two conditions: the serving RSRP is
less than a predefined threshold, and a stronger target RSRP is
compared with the serving RSRP. The third category, on the
other hand, adds the HOM to the RSRP level to initiate the
handover decision algorithm. Thus, the handover decision is
considered when the target RSRP is greater than the serving
RSRP plus the HOM. The third category is the most practical
algorithm used for the handover decision algorithm [11, 12].
However, the HOM level between the serving and target RSRP
and the TTT interval contribute in reducing the UHO procedure
(preventing the ping-pong effect). The ping-pong effect is a fre-
quent UHO scenario between two neighbor stations and results
from rapid fluctuations in the signal strength from both stations. values: TTT = [40; 80; 160; 480] (ms); HOM = [-1; 0; 1; 2; 3]
Thus, HCP values are considered highly sensitive for consider- (dB). We considered three types of RLF that disrupt the link
ing a robust handover decision, which in turn contributes to the between the UE and eNB, namely, too early handover, too late
enhancement of throughput and outage probability. Thus, the handover and wrong cell handover. For example, UEs in high
handover decision algorithm based on RSRP with a marginal speed state will pass through many eNBs which require a low
level is the adopted, and conventional handover decision algo- TTT value to avoid too late handover. On the contrary, when
rithm used in in LTE and LTE-A systems [13, 14]. This hand- UEs move with low speed, they will have experienced short
over decision is given mathematically as follows: distance and good quality signal, requiring high TTT value to
avoid too early handover. Algorithm 1 shows the proposed D-
்ܴܴܵܲ௔௥௚௘௧ ൐ ܴܴܵܲௌ௘௥௩௜௡௚ ൅ ‫ܯܱܪ‬ሺͳሻ
HCPs algorithm based on the type of handover detected.
where ்ܴܴܵܲ௔௥௚௘௧ and ܴܴܵܲௌ௘௥௩௜௡௚ represent the target and
serving RSRP, respectively. Algorithm 1: D-HPO
1. Initialize system’s parameters (LTE-A and mmwave)
2. If t=1
Handover Decision false
3. else
Target eNB
4. Update HPPP and HOF
Serving eNB
5. If the early Too handover detected
Adaptive Margin Value 6. Updating TTT and HOM
Max Handover margin value 7. ࡹሶ ࢚ ൌ ࡹ࢚ି૚ ൅ ࢻǡ ࢀሶ ࢚ ൌ  ࢀ࢚ି૚ ൅ ࢼ
8. Handover Decision  True
RSRP

Update ࡹሶ ࢚ and ࢀሶ࢚

Average Handover margin value
9.
Min Handover margin Value
10. elseif Too late handover detected
Qrslevmin 11. Updating TTT and HOM
12. ࡹሶ ࢚ ൌ ࡹ࢚ି૚ െ ࢻǡ ࢀሶ ࢚ ൌ  ࢀ࢚ି૚ െ ࢼ
T1, represent the beginning of TTT 13. Handover Decision  True
Tn, represent the end of TTT 14. Update ࡹሶ ࢚ and ࢀሶ࢚
Tn
15. elseif Wrong cell handover detected
ࡹሶ ࢚ ൌ ࡹ࢚ି૚ െ ࢻǡ ࢀሶ ࢚ ൌ  ࢀ࢚ି૚ ൅ ࢼ
T1
Time [millisecond]
16.
Time-To-Trigger (TTT)
17. Handover Decision  Ture
Fig. 2. Handover decision algorithm in LTE-A system 18. ࡹሶ ࢚ and ࢀሶ࢚
19. else
Thus, when the target RSRP becomes greater than the serv- 20. Handover Decision  false
ing RSRP by HOM level continuously during a TTT interval, a 21. end if
true handover decision is considered. Fig 2 illustrates the con- 22. end if
cept of using handover decision based on the RSRP and HOM
levels with TTT interval. HCP values can be fixed values or where‫ܯ‬ሶ ௧ and ܶ௧ሶ are the adaptive HOM and TTT, respec-
adaptively adjusted. Fixed HCP values mean that the HCPs are tively.ߙ represent the step levels to adjust HOM which carry a
set at constant values through all transmission time intervals value of 0.5, and ߚ represents the transition level in given TTT
(TTIs). Conversely, adaptive adjustment refers to automatic ad- values. These steps are implemented when a handover condi-
justment of HCPs based on different network factors. These ad- tion is encountered. The TTT and HOM are updated for each
justments could be optimized by identifying the types of hand- UE in cell to avoid RLF in each simulation time.
over that occur during UE mobility in HetNet.
V. EVALUATION METRICS
IV. PROPOSED ALGORITHM In wireless networks, various performance metrics are
In this section, we describe the proposed novel algorithm usually defined to characterize network service quality. Thus,
called D-HCP to address HPO based on mobility scenarios dis- such metrics are essential in this work to investigate the
cussed in the previous section. This novel algorithm reduces efficiency of the proposed algorithms compared with the
RLF and HPPP and maximizes the spectral efficiency of the previous algorithms. These performance metrics include the
system. The framework of HetNets (LTE-Advanced and 5G) following:
are used for evaluating the proposed algorithm. The HCP val- HOP is the probability of UE handover from the serving
ues (HOM and TTT) are selected according to the 3GPP [15] eNB to target eNB and also determines the quality of service.
for HetNets, in which HOM and TTT possess the following In other words, HOP is the probability of switching the radio

41
link connection when the signal quality of the serving eNB VI. SIMULATION AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
worsens. HOP can be calculated by the following expression:
A. Simulation Environment
‫ܱܲܪ‬ǡ௎ா ሺ்߲ ǡ ߲௦ ሻ ൌ ܲ௥ ሾ்߲ െ  ߲௦ ൒ ‫ܯ‬ሿሺʹሻ
The system model and simulation parameters of our work is
where ்߲ and ߲௦ denote the signal strength of target and serving based on 3GPP-specified evaluation methodology using
cells at time ‫ݐ‬, respectively, and ‫ ܯ‬denotes the HOM level. The MATLAB. Two-tier model comprises seven macro tri-sector
average of HOP in each simulation time over all UEs in the hexagonals (MeNB) where 5G SeNBs are placed at the middle
network can be given by the following equation: of each sector of a MeNB cell. The inter-site distances for
σே ೆಶ
௝ୀଵ ܲ௝ ሺ‫ܱܪ‬ሻ
MeNB and SeNB are 500 and 100 m, respectively. Table 1
തതതതതത ൌ
‫ܱܲܪ‬ ǡሺ͵ሻ provides the main simulation parameters. A random mobility
ܰ௎ா model is considered for all UEs throughout the network. That
HPPP is an important metric that calculates the frequency is, in every simulation cycle ‫ݐ‬, the UEs can move in any of the
of UHOs between two adjacent cells. The HPPP counts when four directions in the range of [0", 360"] selected randomly.
the UE disconnects its communication link from the serving Four different UE level speeds are considered: slow, medium
eNB and establishes a new connection with the target eNB, and and fast, ranging from 40 km/h to 160 km/h in steps of 40 km/h
then bounces back to the serving eNB under a time period that to investigate the effect of UE speed on the system perfor-
is less than the critical ping-pong interval ܶ௖ . ܶ௖ is defined as a mance. These considered speeds, which were assumed for the-
short time period (which is assumed to be 2 s) required to cal- oretical investigation, represent typical vehicle speeds in urban
culate UHO between neighboring cells. The HPPP should be and suburban areas.
considered if the condition of the following expression is satis-
fied: Table 1. Simulation parameters
Parameter Value
‫ ܲܲܲܪ‬ൌ  ܲ௥ ሾܶ௜ ൑  ܶ௖ ሿሺͶሻ Carrier frequency (GHz) 2.1 (MeNB), 28 (SeNB)
System bandwidth (MHz) 10 (MeNB), 500 (SeNB)
Number of eNB 7 (MeNB), 21 (SeNB)
ܶ௜ ൌ  ܶ௅ െ  ܶ௛௕ ሺͷሻ Inter-site distance (m) 500 (MeNB), 100 (SeNB)
Macrocell path loss model (dB) 128.1 + 37.6 log10 (R)
where ܶ௜ǡ denotes the time passed by the UEs starting from ini-
Small cell path loss model (dB) 79.2 + 26 log10 (R)
tiating handover in eNB and its return to the same eNB. ܶ௅ de- Shadowing standard deviation (dB) 8 (MeNB), 10 (SeNB)
notes the time to initiate handover from the serving eNB, Shadowing correlation 0.5 (1) between cells
whereas ܶ௛௕ denotes the time required by UE to return to the Transmit power (dBm) 46 (MeNB), 30 (SeNB)
same eNB. When the UE is handed back to the previous serving UE speeds (km/h) 40, 80, 120, 160
UE noise figure (dB) 9
eNB, then the ܶ୧ is less thanܶ௖ ሺܶ୧ ൏ ܶ௖ ሻ, and the handover is
Thermal noise density (dBm/Hz) –174
recorded as ping-pong handover for each UE in the network.
The average HPPP in each simulation time over all UEs in the
network can be given by the following equation: B. Performance analysis
The proposed algorithm was compared with three differen-
ܰு௉௉
തതതതതതതത
‫ ܲܲܲܪ‬ൌ  ሺ͸ሻ tiated static HOM and TTT settings for all UE mobile scenarios
ܰோுை shown in Table 2. The performances of these different settings
of HCPs were analyzed using three key performance indicators,
ܰோுை ൌ  ܰௌ ൅  ܰி ሺ͹ሻ namely, HOP, HPPP and average handover link failure proba-
where ܰு௉௉ denotes the number of ping pong handovers over bility.
the entire simulation. ܰௌ ƒ†ܰி  are the successful handover
and handover failure, respectively. Table 2. HCPs settings
Set HCPs
RLF is recorded when the UE loses connectivity over eNBs HOM (dB) TTT (ms)
in the network. Intuitively, the main sources of RLF include S1-HPO 5 480
S2-HPO 2 512
cases of handover procedure failure or the disruption experi- S3-HPO 0 40
enced by the radio link. To present RLF quantitatively, the av-
erage RLF probability (RLFP), that is, the average RLF rec-
We specifically studied the effect of user mobility on the
orded over all UEs ܰ௎ா , is calculated as follows:
system performance. Four different mobile speed scenarios
σே ೆಶ
௝ୀଵ ܴ‫ܲܨܮ‬௝
were investigated in this simulation, namely, 40, 80, 120 and
തതതതതതത
ܴ‫ ܲܨܮ‬ൌ ሺͺሻ 160 km/h. Fig 5 shows the average HOP versus different
ܰ௎ா mobile speeds for S1-HPO, S2-HPO, S3-HPO and the

42
proposed D-HPO algorithm. The results show that the proposed
D-HPO algorithm causes a significant reduction in the average
HOP compared with other algorithms for all investigated
mobile speeds.
Fig. 5. HOP with different mobile speeds and HPO algorithms
Fig 6 shows the average HPPP over the entire simulation
time for each mobile speed. The HPPP achievable with the D-
HPO algorithm is slightly lower than that with the S1-HPO, S2-
HPO, S3-HPO and the proposed D-HPO algorithms for all mo-
bile speeds. This result is attributed to the higher HPPP ob-
tained when the HPO algorithm with static HCPs (S1-HPO,
S2-HPO and S3-HPO) uses non-optimized HCPs, leading to
non-optimal HCP values. Thus, the number of UHOs increases,
resulting in high HPPP, especially in high mobility speeds.
Moreover, a high HOP leads to high HPPP, wherein a signifi-
cant reduction in HOP will lead to reductions in HPPP.
Fig. 6. HPPP with different mobile speeds and HPO algorithms
Fig 7 shows the average RLFP for S1-HPO, S2-HPO, S3-
HPO and proposed D-HPO algorithm with different mobile
speeds. The average RLF was independently calculated over all
the UEs in the system network and over all simulation times for
43
each mobile speed scenario. The results demonstrate that the
proposed D-HPO algorithm achieves a significant reduction in
RLF compared with other HPO algorithms for all mobile
speeds. Although S3-HPO achieves a lower rate of RLF
compared with S1-HPO and S2-HPO, it yields higher rates of
HPPP due to low values of HOM and TTT (Fig 6).
Fig. 7. RLFP with different mobile speeds and HPO algorithms
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a handover algorithm based on HCPs is pro-
posed to minimize RLF and HPPP for HetNets. The proposed
algorithm optimizes TTT and HOM values according to mobil-
ity scenarios identified for mobility robustness optimization.
The performance of D-HPO algorithm was analyzed using two-
tier model simulation, which consists of 4G and 5G networks,
where it was compared with three scenarios of static HCP val-
ues. Simulations have been performed for different mobile
speeds. The results have shown that the D-HPO improves the
system performance compared with the static values for most
mobile speeds. In future works, several parameters can be con-
sidered for handover decisions, such as UE mobile speed and
traffic load of each cell, in the optimization process.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This project has been sponsored by Telekom Malaysia, TM
R&D with project ID: MMUE/170014.
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