Euclidean geometry axioms assisted target cell boundary approximation for improved energy efficacy in LTE systems

Long Term Evolution (LTE) facilitates users with high data rate at the cost of increased energy consumption. The base station, also known as eNodeB, is the main energy hungry elements in LTE networks. Since power consumption directly affects the operational expenditure, thus the provision of cost-effective services with adequate quality of service has become a major challenge. This paper investigates reduced early handover (REHO) scheme aimed at increased energy efficiency in LTE systems. REHO, compared to standard LTE A3 event, initiates early handover, thereby resulting into reduced energy consumption. Axioms of Euclidean geometry are employed to estimate the target cell boundary towards calculation of the time difference ΔT between standard LTE and REHO. Performance analysis involved comparison of standard LTE with REHO in the presence of varying velocity and Hysteresis values. Early handover ΔT in REHO is calculated in terms of transmission time intervals and results into improved energy efficiency at the cost of slightly increased radio link failure (RLF). The key finding of the work is the nonsensitivity of users towards velocity in standard LTE, whereas REHO leads to considerably improved energy efficiency at low velocity thereby making it an advantageous scheme for urbanised densely deployed LTE networks. Outcomes provided also deliver a guideline for vendors to choose suitable value of hysteresis, while achieving appropriate results of energy saving and RLF.