Enhancing Handover Performance in LEO Satellite Networks with Multi-Connectivity and Conditional Handover Approach

January 1, 2024·
Mohammed Al-Ansi
,
Jorge Querol
,
Madyan Alsenwi
,
Eva Lagunas
,
Symeon Chatzinotas
· 1 min read
Abstract
Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites have emerged as an essential technology for 5G and beyond, with the capability to provide high-speed Internet connectivity on a global scale. However, the continuous movement of these satellites is a significant challenge. Most existing handover (HO) solutions rely on switching between serving and target satellites, resulting in a single-connectivity (SC) hard HO. In contrast, this study introduces a soft-HO methodology that uses dual connectivity and packet duplication during the multi-coverage period to connect users to both serving and target satellites via a multiconnectivity (MC) architecture. MC-HO considers the conditional HO technique and location-based trigger criterion. Compared to SC-HO, MC-HO exhibits a reduction in the average number of HOs and radio link failures. Thus, the proposed approach promises to improve the performance of handover, resulting in more stable and reliable connectivity.
Type
Publication
2024 International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks (SoftCOM)
publication

Abstract & Overview

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites have emerged as an essential technology for 5G and beyond, with the capability to provide high-speed Internet connectivity on a global scale. However, the continuous movement of these satellites is a significant challenge. Most existing handover (HO) solutions rely on switching between serving and target satellites, resulting in a single-connectivity (SC) hard HO. In contrast, this study introduces a soft-HO methodology that uses dual connectivity and packet duplication during the multi-coverage period to connect users to both serving and target satellites via a multiconnectivity (MC) architecture. MC-HO considers the conditional HO technique and location-based trigger criterion. Compared to SC-HO, MC-HO exhibits a reduction in the average number of HOs and radio link failures. Thus, the proposed approach promises to improve the performance of handover, resulting in more stable and reliable connectivity.

Publication Metadata

Satellite Communications