handoverbased

Handover-based refers to systems and processes that rely on handover events—transferring an active connection from one network node or domain to another—to maintain continuity and optimize performance. The term is used in telecommunications and distributed systems to describe designs whose operation depends on handover as a coordination primitive. While not a formal standardized term with a single definition, it generally describes techniques that trigger, manage, and execute handover decisions to preserve service quality during movement or topology changes.

In mobile cellular networks, handover-based approaches manage when a user equipment (UE) moves out of the coverage of a serving cell and needs to connect to a neighboring cell. The typical workflow includes measurement collection, handover decision, preparation, and execution. UEs report signal strength and quality to the network; a controller or mobility management entity evaluates conditions against criteria (thresholds, time-to-trigger, hysteresis) and selects a target cell. After preparation, resources are reserved in the target cell before the connection is switched, aiming for make-before-break handovers. Some architectures support fast or predictive handovers, including X2 or S1 handover procedures in LTE and similar mechanisms in 5G and Wi-Fi offloading.

Key components include measurement reporting, handover decision logic (which may be rule-based or algorithmic), handover preparation and execution, context transfer, and post-handover optimization. Variants exist in which handover decisions also consider load, quality of experience, or network slicing requirements. Handover-based designs are used to handle mobility, load balancing, and seamless service in dense networks, but they introduce signaling overhead, potential for ping-pong handovers, and latency that can affect real-time applications.