LTE Handover Overview

Overview of Handover process

"Handover" is the process in which UE changes the cell, Overall logic is simple and this process are the same in every technology.

i) A UE is in connection with a cell (let's call this 'Cell A').

ii) Now a situation that requires handover happened.

iii) Network send "signal quality measurement" command to UE for the target cell ('CellB') to which it will handover to.

iv) UE performance the measurement and report the "measurement result" to the network via the current cell (Cell A).

v) Network evaluate the measurement result reported by UE.

vi) If the evaluation result turns out to be good for handover, Network send 'Change Cell' command to UE.

vii) UE perform the cell change process.

viii) If cell change process is completed properly, UE send 'cell change completion' message to the network via the target cell (Cell B).

"Signal qualitymeasurement command" ==> RRC Connection Reconfiguration

"Measurement Result"==> Measurement Report

"Change CellCommand" ==> RRC Connection Reconfiguration

"Cell Change Compeletion Message ==> RRC Connection Reconfiguration Complete

 

You may noticed that LTE isusing the same message called "RRC Connection Reconfiguration" bothfor "Signal quality measurement command" and "Change CellCommand".

Now let's jump into detailed technical aspects of LTE handover. 

The following is the overall and simplest form of LTE-LTE handover procedure, this sequence is based on 36.523 TC 8.2.4.2, and  mainly for UE side aspect of Handover process.

Let's highlight some of the critical steps of this handover process.

RRC Connection Reconfiguration for Target Cell Measurement (Step 11)

most part of this message about measurement. Especially understanding the Quantity Configuration parameters would take very long for you to understand in details and would be the main source of problems you will have in field test and field troubleshoot.

 

RRC Connection Reconfiguration for Cell Change (Step 14)

The major part of this message is 'mobilityControlInfo' IE and 'securityConfigHO'.

'mobilityControlInfo' tells UE about the frequency of target cell and various physical channel configurationand RACH procedure information about the target cell. In short, this IE(information element) carries the most of SIB2 information of target cell.

 

LTE Measurement Report Trigger (EVENT for Measurement Report)

One of the most important step for Handover is Measurement Report from UE before the handover. Network make a decision on whether it will let UE handover or not, based on the measurement value from UE. There are many different measurement items and many different ways to measure the signal quality of the current cell (serving cell) and target cell.

Ideally a network let UE to report the signal quality (usually RSRP) of the current cell (serving cell) and target cell and set the arbitrary rule for handover. But this can be too complicated and too much load on network since the network may need a multiple times of consecutive measurement result instead of using only a single or a couple of measured signal quality value.

As a kind of solution, 3GPP defines several set of predefined set of measurement report mechanism to be performed by UE. These predefined measurement report type is called "Event". Brief description you can find from 3GPP 36.331 5.5.4, Measurement report triggering is as the following. 

Measurement GAP

Before the handover, UE normally measure the cell power (signal quality) of the target cell and report it to the network, so that network can make a decision whether to allow UE to handover to the target cell or not.

It is not a big issue to measure the signal quality of the target cell if the target cell is at the same frequency as the current cell (Intra-frequency measurement). But there would be an issue when the target cell is at a different frequency from the current cell (Inter-frequency measurement). 

So they come out with a special techique called "Measurement GAP".

The idea of the Measurement GAP is to create a small gap during which no transmission and reception happens. since there is no signal transmission and reception during the gap, UE can switch to the target cell and perform the signal quality measurement and come back to the current cell.

++++++ 转自Technote +++++++