Received Signal Strength Prediction Based Multi-Connectivity Handover Scheme for Ultra-Dense Networks

Ultra reliable and low latency communication (URLLC) is envisioned as a new paradigm for the fifth generation (5G) mobile communications. To meet its stringent requirement, multi-connectivity attracts attention from both the academy and industrial, especially in Ultra-Dense Networks (UDN) where the user is under the coverage of several base stations (BSs). The dense deployment of BSs leads to a frequent unnecessary handover of moving user equipment (UE), which results in higher handover latency and more signal overhead. To overcome this problem, a received signal strength (RSS) prediction based multi-connectivity handover (RPMCH) scheme is proposed. In the scheme, a new handover triggering mechanism is adopted and the target serving BSs are selected based on RSS prediction. The simulation shows that the PRMCH scheme reduces the number of handovers by more than 50% compared with state-of-the-art handover scheme. In addition, our scheme contributes to a higher average throughput for medium and high mobility cases.