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Soft HO-Active Set - Events 1a 1b 1c -3g

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Sandeep Kadam
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© © All Rights Reserved
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 3GPP Soft & Softer Handover In UMTS System


Soft & Softer Handover In UMTS


System

 Prashant Panigrahi  June 16, 2011  4

What are soft and softer handover in 3G UMTS mobile system?

Handovers are an important part of every cellular communication


system. They are used for providing mobility in cellular architec-
tures. In UMTS systems different handover types have been intro-
duced to cope also with other requirements as load control, cover-
age provisioning and offering quality of services.
Handover aims to provide continuity of mobile services to a user
traveling over cell boundaries in a cellular infrastructure. For a user
having an ongoing communication and crossing the cell edge, it is
more favorable to use the radio resources in the new cell – also
called the target cell because the signal strength perceived in the
“old” cell worsens as the user penetrates the target cell.

The whole process of tearing down the existing connection in the


current cell and establishing a new connection in the appropriate
cell is called “handover”. The ability of a cellular network to perform
efficient handovers is crucial to offer attractive services as real-time
applications or streaming media as planned in third generation net-
works.

Especially in WCDMA two special types of handovers have been in-


troduced; soft and softer handovers, allowing a mobile user to use
2 separate air interface channels when being in the overlapping ar-
ea of two adjacent sectors.

Soft & Softer handovers are similar in techniques but there are
some differences in both the techniques.
Softer Handover

Softer handover is the situation where one base station receives


two user signals from two adjacent sectors it serves. In the case of
softer handover the base station receives 2 separated signals
through multi-path propagation. Due to reflections on buildings or
natural barriers the signal sent from the mobile stations reaches
the base station from two different sectors.

The signals received during softer handover are treated similarly as


multi-path signals. In the uplink direction the signals received at the
base station are routed to the same rake receiver and then com-
bined following the maximum ratio combining technique. In the
downlink direction the situation is slightly different as the base sta-
tion uses different scrambling codes to separate the different sec-
tors it serves.

So it is necessary for the different fingers of the rake receiver in the


mobile terminal to apply the appropriate de-spreading code on the
signals received from the different sectors before combining them
together.

Soft Handover

In the case of soft handover the mobile station is in the overlapping


cell coverage area of two sectors belonging to different base sta-
tions.

In downlink direction the signals received from the two different


base stations are combined using MRC Rake processing in the mo-
bile station.
In the uplink direction the received signals can no longer be com-
bined in the base station but are routed to the RNC. The combining
follows a different principle; in the RNC the two signals are com-
pared on a frame-by-frame basis and the best candidate is selected
after each interleaving period; i.e. every 10, 20, 40 or 80ms. As the
outer loop power control algorithm measures the SNR of received
uplink signals at a rate between 10 and 100Hz, this information is
used to select the frame with the best quality during the soft hand-
over.

The Soft Handover procedure is composed of a number of single


functions:

• Measurements
• Filtering of Measurements
• Reporting of Measurement results
• The Soft Handover Algorithm
• Execution of Handover

Soft Handover Algorithm

Soft handover in practice is a complex technique. The following ex-


ample will describe soft handover for best case scenario.
Before describing the above scenario we need to know three im-
portant terms.

Active Set

User information is sent all the cell belongs to Active Set. In FDD,
the cells in the active set are involved in soft handover. In TDD the
active set always comprises one cell only. The UE shall only consider
active set cells included in the variable CELL_INFO_LIST for meas-
urement; i.e. active set cells not included in the CELL_INFO_LIST
shall not be considered in any event evaluation and measurement
reporting.

Monitored Set

Cells, which are not included in the active set, but are included in
the CELL_INFO_LIST belong to the monitored set.
Detected Set

Cells detected by the UE, which are neither in the CELL_INFO_LIST


nor in the active set belong to the detected set. Reporting of meas-
urements of the detected set is only applicable to intra-frequency
measurements made by UEs in CELL_DCH state.

The above scenario can be devided into three different parts.

Radio Link Addition (Event 1A)

Event 1A is triggered when a primary CPICH enters the reporting


range. This means when a cell is strong enough to enter into Active
Set.

Radio Link Deletion (Event 1B)

Event 1B is triggered when a primary CPICH leaves the reporting


range. This happens when a cell in active set become weak and
needs to be removed from Active Set.

Combined Radio Link Addition & Deletion


(Event 1C)

Event 1C is triggered when a non-active primary CPICH becomes


better than an active primary CPICH. When this event is triggered a
primary CPICH is removed from the Active Set and a new stronger
cell is added into Active Set.

You can get information on other events in another article.


Soft Handover Algorithm Flow Dia-
gram

Further Studies

• WCDMA Design Handbook


• UMTS Signaling: UMTS Interfaces, Protocols, Message Flows
and Procedures Analyzed and Explained
• Radio resource management strategies: 25.922
• Radio Resource Control (RRC): 25.331

 Posted in 3GPP

 4 COMMENTS

 Jai
 9 years ago  Permalink

Thanks Prashant. Another Valuable Tutorial.

 3gLteInfo
 9 years ago  Permalink

Thanks Jai.

 Sambeet Das
 9 years ago  Permalink

please share some doc on how mobile works after switching


on.
 LTE Handover Overview
 7 years ago  Permalink

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