Improvement of handover prediction in mobile WiMAX by using two thresholds

One of the most important challenges in mobile wireless networks is to provide full mobility together with minimum degradation of quality of service. This can be ensured by handover prediction. Handover prediction means a determination of the next station that will serve a mobile station. This paper proposes a prediction technique based on monitoring the signal quality between the mobile station and all base stations in its neighborhood. The proposed technique utilizes two different thresholds for selection of the most likely target base station. Further, the potential improvement of the prediction efficiency via techniques originally proposed for minimizing the number of redundant handovers is analyzed. The efficiency of the proposed prediction technique is evaluated and compared with other prediction techniques based on channel characteristics in scenarios according to IEEE 802.16m. The proposed technique achieves a prediction hit rate of up to 93%. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.