Limited Comp Handover Algorithm For LTE-Advanced

Coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission and reception is the key technique in LTE-Advanced to improve the cell-edge throughput and/or system throughput. Joint processing (JP) in CoMP technology provides multiple data transmission points for each user among multiple cooperated radio base stations. Hard handover mechanism is adopted to be used in LTE-Advanced. Standard hard handover algorithm could not satisfy the concept of JP in CoMP in LTE-A due to the constraint of single connection for each user at any time. While the radio resources in the system are fixed, the more multiple data connections a user has, the more radio resources are used for the extra data connections, thus the lower capacity a system becomes. Therefore a new handover algorithm that not only supports JP in CoMP but also takes system capacity into consideration in LTE-A system is necessary. This paper proposes a new handover algorithm known as Limited CoMP Handover Algorithm to support JP in CoMP and overcome the system capacity issue. System performance of Limited CoMP Handover Algorithm is evaluated and compared with open literature handover algorithm via simulation in this paper. The simulation results show that Limited CoMP Handover Algorithm outperforms open literature handover algorithm by having shorter system delay and less system load whilst maintaining a higher system throughput in a high congested network.