An SDN-Based Approach for Load Balance in Heterogeneous Radio Access Networks

The next generation of wireless networks will integrate multiple radio access technologies, which constitute the heterogeneous network. The performance of the network and user experience will depend on a good use of the radio resource heavily. With the development of mobile Internet, a large amount of intelligent terminal applications emerge. Specifically, the multimedia applications, which will take up a lot of bandwidth, present a challenge for the load capacity of the heterogeneous networks. Software Defined Networking (SDN) will give us a solution to the load balancing of the radio access network (RAN). Firstly, we design a SDN-based load balancer to which we can apply different load balancing algorithm. Secondly, we propose a utility-based load balancing algorithm which can take both the RAN status and user needs into consideration. Finally, simulation results show that the RAN load can be balanced while giving users a good experience.