Radio access technology selection in SDN controlled reconfigurable base station. (February 2018) - Das, Dibakar
Highlights: Inter-RAT mobility has higher latency than intra-RAT mobility. Latency can be improved by converting Inter-RAT mobility to Intra-RAT mobility. For this purpose, Reconfigurable Base Station (RBS) with SDN is investigated. Three algorithms to choose the appropriate RAT for RBS are proposed. Simulation results show how the algorithms perform in various deployment scenarios. Graphical abstract: Abstract: Several Software Defined Networking (SDN) based architectures have been proposed for wireless networks. Among them, the proposal of Reconfigurable Base Station (RBS) programmable with different Radio Access Technologies (RATs) dynamically by an SDN controller has the potential to improve mobility. This improvement can be achieved by dynamically converting expensive inter-RAT mobility procedures into efficient intra-RAT ones by deploying RBSs along with traditional base stations. This conversion requires development of algorithms for optimal RAT selection in RBSs by the SDN controller, to increase the proportion of intra-RAT mobility procedures in the network. We propose three novel algorithms using parameters such as mobility procedure counts and execution time of each procedure. Simulation results compare these algorithms and suggest their applicability under various deployment scenarios and User Equipment (UE) mobility patterns. Also, the algorithm based on mobility procedure counts with preference only to incoming UEs in a cell, performs better in most scenarios.