Coverage Analysis of Handoff Algorithm with Adaptive Hysteresis Margin

The handoff initiation in cellular systems depends on many environmental and system parameters. Various handoff initiation algorithms are available and most of them are based on relative signal strength (RSS) measurements. Some hysteresis margin in handoff decision criterion is allowed to avoid the ping-pong effect and hence frequent handoff requests from single user. The value of hysteresis margin plays a key role in handoff performance and affects the coverage of the cellular system. It is very difficult to choose a particular value for it. In this paper, the coverage of a handoff algorithm with dynamic hysteresis margin, based on the distance information between the mobile station and the serving base station, is analyzed for microcellular environment. Handoff probability is taken as performance parameter to evaluate handoff algorithms analytically.