RSS-Based Handover Skipping for Ultra-Dense Attocell Networks

Abstract

Light fidelity (LiFi) is a recently proposed wireless communication technology that employs the light wave as a medium to transmit data. With the coverage range of a few meters, LiFi access points (APs) comprise an ultra-dense attocell network. As a result, users may quickly traverse the coverage area of one LiFi AP, even with a moderate speed. This would cause frequent handovers and a subsequent decrease in the user's throughput. Handover skipping (HS), which enables handovers between two non-adjacent APs, is able to reduce the handover rate. Conventional HS methods rely on the user's trajectory, which is difficult for APs to acquire in practice. In this paper, we propose a novel HS scheme on the basis of received signal strength (RSS). Specifically, the rate of change in RSS is exploited to indicate whether the user is moving towards a certain AP. Since RSS is already used in standard handover schemes, the proposed method does not require extra feedback. Results show that compared to the signal strength strategy, the proposed HS approach can effectively reduce the handover rate, especially for fast- moving users. With respect to the user's throughput, the new method can achieve an increase of up to 67\% against the signal strength strategy.