A new algorithm to reduce the deviation in the base stations transmitted powers during soft handoff in CDMA cellular systems

Soft handoff (SHO) is one of the critical components that determine the performance of a CDMA cellular system. The mobile station in 3G systems send power control commands to the base stations to adjust their powers. These power control commands can be received in error by on of the base stations in the active set serving the mobile. This results in the base stations transmitted powers deviating. Reducing the deviation in the base stations transmitted powers helps to achieve the desired diversity gain from SHO. We propose to change the way the base stations respond to power control commands. This does not require changing the way the mobile issues the power control commands. From the simulation results we see that at a speed of 5 km/h, the probability that the difference in the two base stations transmitted powers being greater than 5 dB is about 25% using the conventional scheme while it is only 8% for the proposed scheme (majority voting over two commands). We notice also that the base stations average transmitted power is reduced by employing the majority voting scheme.