Intelligent handover decision based on fuzzy logic for heterogeneous wireless networks

Abstract

An intelligent handover decision system (HDS) is essential to heterogeneous wireless mobile networks in order to fulfill user's expectations in terms of universal and seamless services. With emerging real-time services in heterogeneous networking environment, including multiple QoS parameters in handover decision process seems essential. In this paper, fuzzy logic is applied to enhance the intelligence of HDS. A new fuzzy-based HDS design with the aim to reduce design complexity of fuzzy engine without sacrificing handover decision performance is proposed in the paper. The results show that, compared to non-fuzzy-based (i.e., SAW and AHP) and existing fuzzy-based decision techniques, the network selection performance of proposed HDS design is significantly better than SAW and AHP, and is superior to an existing fuzzy-based technique. The proposed HDS design is then enhanced by incorporating an adaptive mechanism enabling a further improvement in terms of the network selection performance.