Abstract—The ultra-dense deployment of small cells in 5G Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) generates frequent handovers, which in turn trigger severe issues including Handover Failure (HOF), Ping-Pong Handover (PPHO), and Radio Link Failure (RLF), resulting in degraded Quality of Service (QoS)—especially under high-speed mobility scenarios. To tackle these challenges, this paper proposes an Adaptive Quantum-Inspired Multi-Objective Handover Management (AQIM-HM) framework for ultra-dense 5G HetNets. In this framework, quantum bit encoding with adaptive quantum rotation is utilized to model the handover decision-making process. The handover problem is constructed as a constrained multi-objective optimization problem that targets the minimization of Handover Rate (HOR), HOF, PPHO, and RLF, as well as the simultaneous maximization of per-user average throughput and QoS stability. Simulation results reveal that the proposed AQIM-HM reduces the HOR by 50%, 40%, 35.7%, 30.8%, and 25% compared with the 3^rd Generation partnership project (3GPP) Event A3-Based Handover Scheme (3GPP A3), Handover Control Parameter (HCP) strategy, Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), respectively. Against the same benchmark methods, the HOF is cut by 62.5%, 50%, 43.75%, 40%, and 37.5%; the PPHO rate decreases by 67.5%, 52.7%, 48%, 45.3%, and 42.2%; and the RLF is lowered by 59%, 45.3%, 41.4%, 39.7%, and 36.9%. Meanwhile, AQIM-HM boosts average user throughput by 50%, 31.25%, 20%, 16.7%, and 13.5% relative to the five baseline algorithms mentioned above. Multiple independent simulation runs are conducted for statistical validation, and all performance gains are shown to be statistically significant (p < 0.001).  
 
Keywords—Adaptive Quantum-Inspired Multi Objective Handover Optimization (AQIM-HM), 5G Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets), quantum bits, quantum rotation gate, genetic algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)

Cite: Shaik Mazhar Hussain, Shafiq Ul Rehman, Winny Elizabeth Philip, Appala Raju Uppala, Gummula Ravi, and Debashis Das, "Adaptive Quantum-inspired Multi-objective Handover Optimization for Ultra Dense 5G Networks," Journal of Communications, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 565-577, 2026.

Copyright © 2026 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).