Neighboring Cell Search Techniques for LTE Systems

Long term evolution (LTE) is envisioned to be a key technology for the 4G wireless communication. In LTE systems, each user (UE) detects the surrounding base stations by searching the primary and secondary synchronization channel symbols in the received signal. Searching and tracking neighboring base stations is of great interest for UEs´ handover and other applications such as base station cooperation. In this paper, we formulate the problem of neighboring cell search (NCS) for LTE systems and investigate this problem from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In particular, we first derive the sufficient signal metrics for NCS under various channel conditions and develop NCS algorithms based on these metrics. We also implement the algorithms on the simulator to validate its effectiveness.