A Markov-Based Multi-Attribute Vertical Handoff Decision Algorithm

Many vertical handoff decision algorithms have not considered the impact of call dropping during the vertical handoff decision process. Besides, most of current multi-attribute vertical handoff algorithms cannot predict users’ specific circumstances dynamically. In this paper, we formulate the vertical handoff decision problem as a Markov decision process, with the objective of maximizing the expected total reward during the handoff procedure. A reward function is formulated to assess the service quality during each connection. The G1 and entropy methods are applied in an iterative way, by which we can work out a stationary deterministic policy. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority of our proposed algorithm compared with the existing methods.