The problem of improving the handover performance in Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) networks has not been fully solved yet. Traditionally, the selection of the target Evolved Node B (TeNB) in the handover procedure is based on the signal strength measurements, which may not produce a reliable handover. A reliable handover method may reduce the instances of unstable or frequent handovers that otherwise waste network resources. The signal strength measurement process is inherently time consuming as the user equipment (UE) has to measure multiple neighboring eNB (NeNB) frequencies in each measurement period. An efficient handover method is required to improve the overall performance of such systems. In this paper we propose a reliable and fast TeNB selection scheme for LTE-A handover. The proposed scheme outperforms the existing LTE-A handover methods. The improved performance is achieved by selecting the TeNB based on some three independent parameters, namely orientation matching (OM), current load (CL), and the received signal strengths. An UE essentially measures only the NeNBs shortlisted based on OM and CL; thus measurement time is reduced considerably leading to a reduction of overall handover time. The performance of the proposed scheme is validated by simulation.

翻译：提升长期演进技术升级版（LTE-A）网络切换性能的问题尚未得到完全解决。传统上，切换过程中目标演进基站（TeNB）的选择基于信号强度测量，这可能无法产生可靠的切换。可靠的切换方法可以减少不稳定或频繁切换的发生，否则这些切换会浪费网络资源。信号强度测量过程本身耗时较长，因为用户设备（UE）必须在每个测量周期内测量多个相邻eNB（NeNB）的频率。需要一种高效的切换方法来提升此类系统的整体性能。本文提出了一种用于LTE-A切换的可靠且快速的目标演进基站选择方案。所提方案优于现有的LTE-A切换方法。其性能提升是通过基于三个独立参数选择目标演进基站实现的，这三个参数分别是：方向匹配、当前负载和接收信号强度。用户设备本质上仅测量基于方向匹配和当前负载筛选出的相邻演进基站，从而显著减少了测量时间，进而降低了整体切换时间。通过仿真验证了所提方案的性能。