Performance evaluation of capacity based CoMP handover algorithm for LTE-Advanced

Coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission and reception is the key technique in LTE-Advanced to improve the cell-edge throughput and/or system throughput. Joint processing (JP) in CoMP technology supports data to be available at each cell in the CoMP set. A handover algorithm is needed for making a handover decision. In this paper, a capacity based CoMP handover algorithm supporting JP in LTE-A system is proposed, evaluated and compared with open literature handover algorithm. Capacity based CoMP handover algorithm aims to emphasis the quality of target cells in both capacity and channel quality domains and ensures the radio resources are efficiently used in the system. Simulation results show that capacity based CoMP handover algorithm can effectively maximize the system throughput and minimize the system delay. However, this algorithm could have higher total number of handovers issue when dealing with large number of users in the network.