A prediction based handover trigger in overlapped heterogeneous wireless networks

Heterogeneous wireless networks are envisaged to be an integration of different wireless networks and demand the ability of users to move from one network domain to another network domain seamlessly. These networks are overlapped by each other to some extent. An appropriate time to initiate Handover (HO) is required to be calculated based on the necessity of HO as well as availability of target network. The link down trigger and link up trigger are the points corresponding to the HO requirement and resource availability respectively. In this paper, a prediction based HO trigger is proposed to initiate HO procedure at appropriate time. Matlab Simulation results demonstrate significant improvement in HO performance in different network overlapping environments.