An Efficient Femto-cell Scanning Scheme Using Network Assistance in IEEE 802.16e System

The femtocell is a miniaturized Base Station (BS) with low-cost and low-power using general broadband access network as backhaul. It is expected not only to improve indoor coverage but also to reduce a service charge. However, in IEEE 802,16e femtocells, when the Mobile Station (MS) scans neighbor BSs for handover, it takes a long time due to too many number of femto BSs. Also the size of the neighbor advertisement message that will be periodically sent by a serving BS is increased as the number of target femto BSs for scanning increases. In this paper, we proposed an efficient femtocell scanning scheme, using a triangulation mechanism and a femto BS monitoring scheme to reduce the number of scanning operations and the size of the neighbor advertisement messages. The proposed scheme can avoid wasting air resources and reduce scanning overheads by minimal scanning operation. The simulation results showed that the proposed scheme could improve scanning performance and avoid wasting air resources, compared with the conventional scheme of the IEEE 802.16e system.