Enhanced Matching Game for Decoupled Uplink Downlink Context-Aware Handover

In this paper, we address the problem of cell association during a handover performed in a dense heterogeneous network, where the preference of a mobile user’s equipment in terms of uplink traffic is not the same as for the downlink traffic. Therefore, since mobility is an intrinsic element of cellular networks, designing a handover from the perspective of the uplink and downlink is mandatory in the context of 5G cellular networks. Based on this arena, we propose a decoupled uplink-downlink handover scheme while making use of femtocells in order to maximize the overall network entity utilities and avoid overloading macrocells. However, the fact that the handover process is performed in a dense heterogeneous network makes the issue NP-hard. Therefore, taking into account the need for self-organizing solutions, we modeled the handover process as a matching game with externalities. Thus, we will provide an aspect of intelligence for the execution of the handover process to mobile user’s equipment (UE). To make the proposition more efficient, we integrate an assignment step to assist the matching game. Hence, the base stations will be investigated and filtered, keeping only the helpful base stations as the players in terms of the quality of service for the uplink and downlink. The numerical results verify the superiority of the proposed context-aware algorithm over traditional downlink handover and traditional decoupled uplink and downlink handover schemes, by improving the load balancing, increasing rates and reducing delays.