Autonomous call admission control with prioritized handoff in cellular networks

In this paper we propose an alternative approach for finding a near-optimal call admission policy that prioritizes handoff requests over new calls in a generic mobile cellular network. The performance measure is formed as a weighted linear function of new call and handoff call blocking probabilities. The problem is formulated as a semi-Markov decision process with average cost criterion. Then, a simulation-based learning algorithm based on temporal difference methodology is used to determine a near-optimal control policy online from interaction with the network without a priori knowledge or estimation of the dynamical model of the network. Simulations are provided to compare the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm with two well-known resource-sharing policies: complete sharing and reservation policies (guard threshold). The learning algorithm adapts to traffic variations and this paper shows that it also gives very close blocking probabilities as the optimal guard threshold approach.