Study of handover in cellular communication network

• Main Author: Goh, Zhen Quan.
• Other Authors: Li Xuejun
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Wireless communication systems
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/39513
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the fourth generation (4G) cellular network and will be taking over the current third generation (3G) Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) Cellular network in the near future. The report aims to study the handover in different generations of the cellular network. The objective of this project is to study the challenges in designing of handover protocols/algorithms to guarantee the quality of service (QoS) of real-time applications such as the voice call application. In this project, Qualnet is the main software used to simulate handover in second generation (2G) Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) and 3G UMTS cellular network and MATLAB is used to assist the analyzing and interpretation of data from Qualnet. The report mainly focuses on horizontal hard handover that is used in 2G cellular network. Hard handover is a process whereby the active connection between the serving Base Station (BS) and a Mobile Station (MS) is broken before being attached to the new target BS. This occurs when the MS crosses the boundary of different coverage areas. Failure of performing handover when crossing coverage area might lead to call termination which is not desirable to the user. Throughout the research, three key performance indicators such as the total number of handovers performed, time at which handover is performed and uplink received power level was studied. The variables being research includes the handover margin, mobility speed of MS and lastly their direction of movement. The results obtained were analyzed and checked if it satisfies the handover conditions.