Handover measurement for millimeter wave cellular system with beamforming

An efficient handover measurement technique is proposed for millimeter-wave (mm-wave) cellular systems with directional antenna beams. Using the beam synchronization signal (BSS) carrying the cell ID and the beam ID in a hierarchal manner, handover events (interbeam handover and intercell handover) are distinguished at the physical layer. The proposed signal metrics are shown to be effective in detecting the beam boundaries and cell boundaries in mm-wave cellular systems, which allows to distinguish handover events. The proposed handover measurement technique is shown to reduce the processing time significantly using the signal metrics produced by the BSS.