HeNB-aided virtual-handover for range expansion in LTE femtocell networks

Home evolved Node-B (HeNB), also called a femtocell or a femto base station, is introduced to provide high data rate to indoor users. However, two main problems arise in femtocell networks: (1) Small coverage area of HeNB, which results in limited cell-splitting gain and ping-pong handover (HO) problems and (2) high inter-femtocell interference because HeNBs may be densely deployed in a small region. In this study, an efficient cooperation mechanism called an HeNB-aided virtual-HO (HaVHO) scheme is proposed to expand the coverage area of femtocells and to reduce inter-femtocell interference. The cooperation among neighbor HeNBs is exploited in HaVHO by enabling an HeNB to relay the data of its neighbor HeNB without an HO. The HaVHO procedure is compatible with the existing long term evolution specification, and the information exchange overhead in HaVHO is relatively low. To estimate the signal to interference plus noise ratio improvement, the area average channel state metric is proposed, and the amount of user throughput enhancement by HaVHO is derived. System-level simulation shows that HaVHO has a better performance than the other four schemes, such as lesser radio link failure, lesser ping-pong handover, lesser short-stay handover, and higher user throughput.