A User-Preference-Aware Terminal-Controlled Access Network Selection Scheme in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The coexistence and integration of multiple radio access technologies (RATs) deployed by different network operators are fundamental for next-generation mobile communication systems. In heterogeneous wireless environments, the access network selection, which is to select the most suitable network(s) for a terminal equipped with multiple radio interfaces according to various selection strategies, is a very important issue resulting in the performance maximization. In this paper, we propose a terminal-controlled access network selection scheme with parallel transmission capability for heterogeneous wireless networks, in which the suitable network(s) is(are) selected to access according to the total utility of different access networks. And the utility of each RAT is calculated based on the user preference and multiple access network criteria. Furthermore, the terminal-controlled access network selection with parallel transmission is formulated as a multi-constraint Knapsack problem which is solved with the exhaustive method to an optimum combination of RATs. Our proposed scheme is user-preference-aware, cost-aware, power-aware, and QoS-oriented. Simulation results show that our proposed access network selection scheme with parallel transmission can greatly improve the achieved data transmission rate with only a little increment in the cost and power consumption.