Optimum selection of handoff initiation algorithm and related parameters

Handoff is the key operation in cellular mobile communication systems which is accomplished by the system and is imperceptible to the user. In the handoff initiation, along with study of the radio link and execution of a decision algorithm, the new station is selected. No comprehensive study which contains all of the different handoff initiation methods along with their simulation in a more than two cell structure has yet been reported. In this paper, in addition to modeling the different handoff initiation methods, a comparison has been presented between different methods regarding their mean number of handoffs, obtained outage and delay. Finally a procedure for optimum selection of control parameters such as averaging window length, hysteresis margin and handoff threshold level has been offered