TRUST: A Trigger-Based Automatic Subjective Weighting Method for Network Selection

Abstract

In recent years, network selection in heterogeneous wireless networks has been widely studied by combining various attributes to make a final decision. However, weighting methods in the current literature are not suitable for practical usage. Therefore, we propose in this paper a novel weighting method, named TRigger-based aUtomatic Subjective weighTing (TRUST), which can efficiently calculate the subjective weights of various network attributes based on both terminal-side and network-side subjective requirements in the network selection issue. Trigger events of the network selection procedure are specifically considered by this method, so the subjective weights are calculated based on the effects that these events bring to the selection results. The proposed method has several obvious benefits compared with the widely used eigenvector method in the literature of network selection.