A Novel Metric for Context-Aware RAT Selection in Wireless Multi-Access Systems

This paper presents a novel metric, named fittingness factor, for developing common radio resource management (CRRM) algorithms in heterogeneous wireless scenarios. It reflects the suitability of allocating a given radio access technology (RAT) and cell to a user depending on the specific context in terms of requested service and on the terminal and network capabilities at each instant. Thus, the fittingness factor allows synthesizing a number of considerations supporting CRRM decisions into a single and generalized parameter. Simulation results reveal that the proposed approach is able to capture the different terminal and service heterogeneities and obtains better performance than other approaches existing in the literature.