HANDOVER PARAMETERS IN LTE

Asad Basit
Electrical Department
Comsats institute of Information Technology
Asadbasit46@gmail.com

Abstract-Handover is the decisive part in

mobile
communication
because
it
transfers ongoing data and calls from one
point to another point when the UE (user
equipment) moves. In order to reduce HO
failures self-optimization algorithms are
deployed
Automatic
configuration
and
optimization is a key concept in LTE.
Thus self-organized solution for the LTE
handover parameters is proposed, based
on the mobility performance indicators.
This paper explained the major events
and process that are involved in
Handover process.

overall network performance and quality of

service (QOS).The main targets are reducing
the number of HOs that are begin but not
carried out to execution which results in HO
failures, repeated back and forth HOs
between two base stations often called
ping- pong HOs and calls being dropped.
Handover can be defined by a very precise
flow of events. The main challenges facing
is finding the perfect balance between the
control parameters of the HO process and
ensure that the network is in stable point for
a long time. This paper describes the
measurement parameters involved in HO
process and Handover process carried out in
LTE.

I.INTRODUCTION
Handover is a procedure for assuring that
users can move freely within a network.
Since its success rate is a key indicator of
user satisfaction. It is vital that this
procedure happens as fast and as frequently
as possible. In currently deployed setup,
handover optimization is performed
manually. This approach is time consuming
and cannot be carried out as often as needed.
Thus by developing self-optimizing
algorithm that can tune parameters of the
handover process, this enables a better

II.METRICS
The metrics used in handover parameter
optimization are further sub divided into
system metrics, control parameters and
assessment metrics. The received power
(RSRP) and signal-to interference and noise
(SINR) and received signal quality (RSRQ)
are system metrics. They are used to select
the connected cell and possible handover
candidates. The control parameters are tuned
by the optimization algorithm to increase the

HO performance of the network. The

metrics are used as measurements during the
optimization process and as performance
indicators for the optimization algorithm
evaluation.
III. SYSTEM METRICS
In LTE or other cellular networks, UE report
some kind of signal to base station for
various decision making. This could be used
for better uplink scheduling, cell selection,
downlink scheduling, multipath propagation
and other location based services. These
includes the following i-e RSRP, RSRQ,
SNR, RSSI etc.

A. RSRQ (Reference Signal Received

Power)
RSRP (Reference Signal Receive Power) is
the average power of Resource Elements
(RE) that carry cell specific Reference
Signals over the entire bandwidth. Its
typically range is about -44 to -130dbm.This
measurement is used in RRC idle/connected,
HO scenarios, Cell Selection/Reselection.
RSRP measures only the Reference signal
(RS) power and excludes all noise and
interference power. The RSRP is calculated
from the cell transmit power (Pc), the path
loss values from the users to different cells
(Lue) and additional shadow fading with
log-normal distribution and a standard
deviation of 3db (Lfad).The resulting RSRP
values are calculated per cell c and user UE
by :
RSRP c, ue = Pc Lue Lfad
Since this measures only the reference
power, we can say that this is the strength of

the wanted signal. But it does not gives any

information about signal quality. RSRP tells
us the signal strength of the desired signal,
not the quality of signal. For quality of the
signal information we use another parameter
called RSSQ.
B. RSRQ
(REFERENCE
RECIEVED QUALITY)

SIGNAL

Although RSRP is an important measure,

but it gives no indication of signal quality.
RSRQ is defined as (N x RSRP)/RSSI,
where N is the number of RBs over the
measurement bandwidth. Thus this is not the
direct measurement, it is a derived value
from RSRP and RSSI. By dividing RSRP by
RSSI, it could give some information about
interference also tells about the strength of
the wanted signal.
Measuring RSRQ
becomes important near the cell edge when
decisions need to be made, regardless of
absolute RSRP, to perform a handover to the
next cell. Reference signal receive quality is
used only during connected states. Inter and
intra frequency absolute RSRQ accuracy
varies from 2.5 to 4 db.

C. RSSI
(RECEIVED
STRENGTH INDICATOR)

SIGNAL

RSSI is a measurement of all the power

contained in the applicable spectrum (1.4, 3,
5, 10, 20 MHz). This could be data channels,
control channels, adjacent cell power, and
background noise. Thus RSSI is a parameter
which provides information about the total
received wide-band power including all
interference. The RSSI is the total power
that UE observes across the whole band, this
includes power from the serving cell,

adjacent channel interference and cochannel non-serving cell signal, thermal

noise within the specified band.

Event A3: Neighbour cell becomes

an offset better than the serving cell.
Event A4: Neighbour becomes offset
better than threshold.

IV. CONTROL PARAMETERS

The control parameters are tuned by the
optimization algorithm to increase the HO
performance of the network. The metrics are
used as measurements during the
optimization process and as performance
indicators for the optimization algorithm
evaluation. After UE reports the signal
strength of the serving and neighbor cell.
Then control parameters are deployed to
make the handover successful. These
parameters includes event A1 to A5 and B1,
B2, MRO, offset, Time to trigger, thus to
increase the success rate of handover.

Event A5: Serving cell becomes

worse than a threshold.
For inter-RAT mobility, the following
criteria for reporting and events.
Event B1:Neighbor cell becomes
better than threshold.
Event B2: Serving cell becomes
worse than threshold.

A. EVENT A3 IN LTE:
V.
MEASUREMENT
TRIGGERING

REPORT

After UE measure the signal strength of its

serving cell and the neighbor ones. Then it
reports the result to eNB, periodically or
when a measurement event is triggered as
one of the reporting criteria set by
measurement configuration is satisfied.
For LTE, the following criteria specified
reporting and events:
Event A1: Serving cell becomes
better than threshold.
Event A2: Serving cell becomes less
than the threshold.

A3 event in LTE is used for intra-LTE

handover in LTE. When neighbor LTE cell
become stronger than source LTE cell than
UE will trigger event A3 and send
measurement report containing RSRP and
RSRQ along with target cell PCI to eNodeB.
Then eNodeB send RRC reconfiguration
message to UE which contains other
handover parameters.
The user equipment uses parameters sent by
the RBS to determine when to perform
handover measurements. Measurements
commences on the serving and neighboring
cells when the RSRP of the serving cell falls
below the value defined in the sMeasure parameter.

Entering A3 Event conditions are defined by

the following
MnHysteresisA3>Ms+a3offset
Mn = measured value of the neighboring
cell (either RSRP or RSRQ)
Ms = measured value of the serving cell
(either RSRP or RSRQ)

Figure 1
UE uses either RSRP or RSRQ
measurements to determine whether to enter
the EventA3 condition. The trigger Quantity
A3 parameter is used to configure whether
RSRP or RSRQ values are used to trigger
EventA3. Measurements of RSRP and
RSRQ are performed on the serving and
detected neighboring cells. The measured
values of RSRP and RSRQ then filtered
based upon the settings of the
parameter filter Coefficient E-Utran RSRP
and filter Coefficient E-Utran RSRQ
parameters.
The filter averages a number of
measurements in order to filter out the
impact of large scale fast fading. The user
equipment then uses an offset value, a3
offset, and a hysteresis value, hysteresis A3,
to determine whether to trigger the Event A3

Once Event A3 is triggered, the user

equipment will wait a pre-determined time
(timeToTriggerA3) before it commences
sending measurement reports to the serving
RBS. These measurement reports contain
measurements for the serving cells and up to
three detected intra frequency neighbor
cells. The report Quantity A3 parameter
indicates whether RSRP or RSRQ
measurements, or both, are to be included in
the
measurement
reports.
The parameter report Interval A3 determines
the time interval between measurement
reports. The parameter report Amount
A3 indicates how many reports to send; a
value of 0 indicates that the reports should
be sent indefinitely whilst the EventA3
condition is active. The user equipment uses
the same offset and hysteresis values to
determine when to leave EventA3 when the
serving cell improves in RSRP or RSRQ
relative to the neighboring cells. The
formula used by the UE is given by:
Mn + HysteresisA3 < Ms + a3offset

B. A3 OFFSET

This parameter can be found in 3GPP

36.331.The value sent over the RRC
interface is twice the value configured, that
is, the UE has to divide the received value
by 2.The role of the offset in Event A3 is to
make the serving cell look better than its
current measurement in comparison to the
neighbor.

LTE required such algorithm which

automatically optimize and configure the
So
Automatic
configuration
and
optimization of networks is a key concept in
LTE. There are some important parameters
described in the paper which are involved in
the HO. Event A3 is the most important
parameter widely used in LTE handover
process.

C. HYSTERESIS A3
The role of the hysteresis in Event A3 is to
make the measured neighbor look worse
than the serving one, to ensure it is really
stronger before the UE decides to send a
measurement report to initiate a handover.

REFERENCES
[1] NTT DoCoMo, Evaluation of Rel-8
LTE mobility performance, 3GPP
R2-093273, May 2009.

D. TIME TO TIGGER A3
In Event A3 the role of ttt is to avoid pingpong effect. Time to trigger A3 typical
values are [0, 40, 64, 80, 100, 128, 160, 256,
320, 480, 512, 640, 1024, 1280, 2560, 5120]
milliseconds.
Cell Individual offset E-UTRAN:
This parameter is applied individually to
each neighbor cell with load management
purposes. The higher the value given to a
neighbor cell, the more attractive it will
be. This parameter can only be used in an
RRC connection reconfiguration.

CONCLUSION
There are always increasing demands of
high speed data applications in wireless
systems with seamless and fast access of
communication services and better QOS.

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