Optimal scheduling of soft handoffs in DS/CDMA communication systems

Considers the problem of optimal scheduling of soft handoffs as applicable to DS/CDMA based cellular networks. The authors have formulated the phenomenon of soft handoffs as a reward/cost stochastic optimization problem wherein the reward is a function of some measurable characteristics of the received signal, and cost can be associated with different factors such as multiple simultaneous active connections, connection set-up and termination overheads. Using dynamic programming, a maximum net reward policy that specifies the optimal base stations the mobile should be associated with during each time slot, is determined. The authors also extend their results to the case when there are more than two base stations. Furthermore, the decisions are taken in a decentralized online manner. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms offer considerable improvement over the policy proposed in the IS-95 standard