ZEUS: Handover algorithm for 5G to achieve zero handover failure

Abstract

In 5G, the required target for interruption time during a handover (HO) is 0 ms. However, when a handover failure (HOF) occurs, the interruption time increases significantly to more than hundreds of milliseconds. Therefore, to fulfill the requirement in as many scenarios as possible, we need to minimize HOF rate as close to zero as possible. 3GPP has recently introduced conditional HO (CHO) to improve mobility robustness. In this study, we propose “ZEro handover failure with Unforced and automatic time-to-execute Scaling” (ZEUS) algorithm to optimize HO parameters easily in the CHO. Analysis and simulation results demonstrate that ZEUS can achieve a zero HOF rate without increasing the ping-pong rate. These two metrics are typically used to assess an HO algorithm because there is a tradeoff between them. With the introduction of the CHO, which solves the tradeoff, only these two metrics are insufficient anymore. Therefore, to evaluate the optimality of an HO algorithm, we define a new integrated HO performance metric, mobility-aware average effective spectral efficiency (MASE). The simulation results show that ZEUS provides higher MASE than LTE and other CHO variants.