An adaptive algorithm for energy efficient network selection in heterogeneous networks

Abstract

In heterogeneous environment, mobile terminals should be equipped with multiple interfaces to have requisite services from available networks. This flexibility is achieved at the cost of significant power consumption at network side as well as mobile terminals. Energy consumption of mobile terminal increases with increase in simultaneous connections as well as user applications. When a user roams in the overlapping area of different networks, it is required to maintain service continuity with the network which offers requisite quality of service and maximum lifetime to the mobile terminal. So, a VHO technique, which provides optimum network selection by considering user's preferences and at the same time is able to adapt to the current battery status is the need of the day. In this work, an adaptive algorithm for network selection is proposed which provides a balance between desired quality of service (QoS) with the present battery level of mobile terminal. Vector normalised preferred performance-based VIKOR (V-VPP) algorithm is used as a baseline algorithm for energy efficient network selection. Performance of V-VPP is also compared with conventional multiple attribute decision-making algorithms on the bases of number of handovers, lifetime and network selection.