Optimal control of handoffs in wireless networks

A dynamic programming formulation is used to obtain, an optimal strategy for the handoff problem in cellular radio systems. The formulation includes the modeling of the underlying randomness in received signal strengths and of the mobile's movements. The cost function is designed such that there is a cost associated with switching and a reward for improving the quality of the call. The optimum decision is characterized by a threshold on the difference between the measured power that the mobile receives from the base stations. We also study the problem of choosing the "best" fixed threshold that minimizes the cost function. The performance of the optimal and suboptimal strategies are compared.