Policy based Automatic Neighbor Relation management for small cell networks

In a small cell network, it becomaes important to support Self-Organizing Network capabilities such as dynamic optimization. A User Equipment (UE) in a LTE network measures signal strength from neighboring access points (APs) and inform this to serving AP. Serving AP creates a Neighbor Cell List that has candidate APs for handover purpose. In this paper, we propose an enhanced Automatic Neighbor Relationship mechanism that considers load and QoS violation factors of the neighboring APs, in addition to received signal strength reports. We also present simulation results and show how it helps in doing policy based mobility management.