Battery-aware network discovery algorithm for mobile terminals within heterogeneous networks

As the wireless industry evolves towards heterogeneous networks, mobile terminals have been given the ability to handover from one network to another. The network selection process starts by a network discovery operation which involves scanning the candidate networks in order to collect the required information for handover decision. Such operation consumes a considerable amount of energy at the terminal-end and yet the mobile terminal battery is limited. In this paper we propose a battery-aware scanning mechanism in which the number of scanned networks is dependent on the battery level at the terminal-end. Simulation results show an improvement of the terminal performance in terms of energy consumption and energy efficiency compared to the conventional approach where all the networks are scanned periodically.