An Enhanced Handover Scheme adopting Mobile Relays in a LTE-A Network for High-Speed Movements

Abstract

In a high movement environment, handover occurs frequently in a mobile network and degrades the quality of mobile communication and service. The shorter the handover delay is, the better the communication quality can be obtained. To shorten the handover delay for a bunch of UEs moving in the same direction, mobile relays (MR), an intermediate role between a UE and an eNodeB (eNB), have been introduced to support mobile communication and service in a Long-Tern Evolution Advanced (LTE-A) network for high-speed rail systems. MR acts as an eNB for the UE, and acts as a UE for the eNB. Since a train travels along a fixed trajectory, target eNB are predicatible when handover is required. Based on such an assumption, we design an enhanced handover scheme to simultaneously synchronize the target eNB and complete the path switch among the serving eNB and target eNB. We run several simulations to show that the proposed scheme can shorten 29.63% of the handover delay.