A Novel Handover Strategy in LTE Networks with Hybrid Access Femtocells

The emerging macro/femto-cell networks are very different from the traditional macrocell networks. Hence, a modified handover strategy for existing networks is needed to support the two-hierarchy network. This paper proposes a novel handover strategy between femtocell and macro-cell for LTE- based network in hybrid access mode. The proposed strategy takes advantage of specialized knowledge about features of hierarchical macro/femto-cell network. Theoretical analysis and simulation are performed on key principles concerning users' movements, adaptive hysteresis and characteristics of traffic. Comparing with the normal strategy, simulation results indicate that a better system performance is achieved by using the proposed strategy.