Wireless Terminal Roaming Override for Load Balancing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems fail to efficiently manage load balancing during roaming and handover in multicell wireless networks, leading to terminal rejections, battery waste, and call disruptions due to unavailable call slots at target base stations.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a distributed logic on terminals with access to a shared database that tracks base station capacity, allowing terminals to override handover or roaming requests if target bases are at capacity, thus preventing unnecessary localization and handover attempts.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If terminals roam or handover to a new base station based on signal strength and link quality, then communication quality is improved, but the target base station may reject the terminal if it has no available call slots
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary capacity checking before allowing roaming or handover. The target base station checks its available call slots in advance, and only terminals that can be accommodated are allowed to roam or handover. This prevents rejection after localization and ensures successful connection establishment.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where base stations communicate their capacity status to terminals. Terminals receive information about available call slots at target base stations and adjust their roaming/handover decisions accordingly. This feedback loop prevents terminals from attempting to connect to overloaded base stations.
2Productivity
If terminals continuously localize to new bases and are forced back due to capacity constraints, then load balancing is achieved, but battery life is wasted and call setup delays occur
Solution Approach 1:
The system checks base station capacity before terminals attempt localization. By performing this preliminary capacity verification, terminals avoid unnecessary localization attempts to full-capacity bases, thereby conserving battery energy and preventing repeated connection failures.
Solution Approach 2:
Terminals autonomously check capacity information and make informed decisions about which base stations to localize to. This self-service capability allows terminals to avoid bases with no available slots, reducing wasted energy and improving overall system efficiency.
3Duration of action of stationary object
If terminals handover to a new base during active calls, then call continuity is maintained, but audio interruptions occur if the target base is at capacity
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs capacity verification before initiating handover during active calls. By checking available call slots in advance, the system ensures that handover can complete successfully without audio interruptions or call drops, maintaining both continuity and quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback about target base capacity to the terminal before handover. This allows the terminal to understand whether handover will succeed, preventing audio interruptions that would occur if handover attempted to a full-capacity base.
4Ease of operation
If base stations accept roaming and handover requests without capacity checking, then ease of operation is maintained, but call slots are unavailable for new terminals
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where base stations communicate their capacity status to terminals and network controllers. This allows the system to maintain simple operation for terminals while intelligently managing capacity allocation to optimize call slot utilization across the network.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses network controllers and distributed logic as intermediaries to manage capacity checking. These intermediaries handle the complex capacity verification and coordination, keeping the terminal operations simple while optimizing overall network resource utilization.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of performing roaming and handover load balancing in a multicell wireless communication network that comprises one or more base stations, each base having a number of call slots to communicate with wireless terminals. The method includes receiving, at a terminal, a broadcast from a base, of the one or more bases, providing capacity information for the one or more bases. The capacity information comprises terminal localization status information and active call handover status information for the one or more bases. The method also includes storing the capacity information in a database at the terminal. The method further includes receiving a roaming or handover request based on signal strength and/or link quality directing the terminal to roam or handover a call to a target base; and overriding the roaming or handover request, to prevent roaming or handover to the target base, based on the stored capacity information.