Median Based Network Selection in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Abstract

In heterogeneous wireless networks, rank aggregation based on multiple decision factors has recently been proposed as a useful approach for network selection. For each decision factor, a rank of the candidate networks is derived according to the value of this decision factor. Then these decision factor dependent ranks are aggregated into a single rank and the top one is considered as a favorite network. However in the realistic scenario, the measurement on decision factor is often inaccurate so that the candidate networks are possibly not ranked appropriately. As a result, if there only exists the slight differences between the decision factor values of several candidate networks, same rank is preferable to these networks. The set of networks is therefore separated into several groups and these groups are ranked accordingly. Moreover the networks tied in the same group have the same rank. In this paper, a new approach namely <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">median</i> <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">based</i> <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">network</i> <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">selection</i> <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">method</i> is therefore proposed to handle such partial tied rank aggregation problem.