Energy-efficient and interference-aware handover decision for the LTE-Advanced femtocell network

Femtocells will play a key role for the wide adoption of the LTE-Advanced system, as they bring the access network closer to the end user in a cost-effective manner. This disruptive communication paradigm, however, dictates the use of advanced interference and mobility management algorithms to cope with the dense yet unplanned network layout. In this paper, we present an interference-aware handover decision algorithm for the LTE-Advanced femtocell network, which utilizes standard signal measurements to select the candidate cell that a) attains the minimum required channel gain for sustaining service continuity and b) minimizes the mean UE transmit power for a prescribed mean SINR target. The proposed algorithm attains backwards compatibility with the LTE-Advanced system, as it is deployed by using the private mechanism for non-standard use. Based on the evaluation methodology of the Small Cell forum, we validate the performance of the proposed algorithm and compare it against that of other state-of-the-art algorithms.