Work

SHIFT-MAB: Fair and Mobility-Aware Handover Control for 6G Fully Decoupled RANs

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Fully decoupled radio access networks (FD-RANs) achieve spectral efficiency and coverage flexibility for 6G via independent uplink (UL) and downlink (DL) base station operation, yet dynamic user mobility brings critical challenges to joint user association and resource allocation. Asymmetric interference and heterogeneous base station capacities cause persistent network unfairness, while uncoordinated mobility management triggers ping-pong handovers and heavy handover overheads. To resolve these intertwined problems, we propose a fully decoupled, mobility-resilient and fairness-guaranteed framework, which integrates short-term congestion pricing with the long-term Jain fairness index for equitable resource distribution and introduces a composite handover penalty with a strict physical hysteresis margin to block invalid handovers. We formulate the optimization problem as a novel Sliding-Window Hysteresis-Integrated Fairness Two-Layer Multi-Armed Bandit (SHIFT-MAB) model, embedding an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) sliding-window mechanism to track real-time channel fluctuations efficiently. Theoretical analysis confirms the model's decoupling optimality, sublinear regret bound and fairness convergence. Extensive simulations show that SHIFT-MAB effectively suppresses invalid handovers, ensures high network fairness, optimizes system utility and achieves a superior handover-throughput trade-off.

Source: Sensors

DOI: 10.3390/s26082560

Authors: Tian Gong, Chen Dai, Tongtong Yang

Institution: Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications

Language: English

Topic: IPv6, Mobility, Handover, Networks, Security

Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137