A Handoff Probability Prediction Based Resource Management Scheme for LTE Femtocells

With the popularization of mobile wireless networks in recent year, we can expect that the future mobile communication environments will be constructed from networks of different coverages and characteristics. The integration of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and femtocell technologies seems to be a feasible option for better and cheaper wireless coverage extension. It is well-known that LTE femtocells are currently under development and they are expected to play an important role in the development of indoor broadband wireless access. This hybrid network can exploit the advantages of both technologies to provide ubiquitous services with high quality of service (QoS). Nevertheless, how to efficiently allocate the bandwidth and reduce the interference in heterogeneous LTE femtocell networks is still a challenging issue which should be tackled. This paper thus proposes a bandwidth management algorithm for integrating LTE and femtocell in heterogeneous wireless networks. A bandwidth reservation module based on fuzzy logic technique is used to estimate the reserved bandwidth for the mobile station in the neighboring femtocell or the surrounding LTE. The simulation results show that our scheme is effective in terms of performance metrics, including dropping probability of handoff calls and new call blocking probability.