Topology-Aware Handover Management for Service Continuity in LEO Satellite Networks

Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are expected to play a key role in sixth-generation (6G) non-terrestrial networks. The high mobility of LEO satellites necessitates frequent handovers (HOs), posing challenges to service continuity and availability for user equipment. Conventional methods based on handover margin (HOM) and time-to-trigger (TTT) have limited adaptability to time-varying channel conditions and do not explicitly account for the impact of feeder-link and ground station (GS) connectivity on HO interruption time. To address these limitations, this paper develops a topology-aware HO framework based on proximal policy optimization (PPO). The framework uses reference signal received power (RSRP), satellite--GS associations, remaining visibility time, and elevation angles to determine when to initiate an HO and which satellite to select. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed policy achieves a service availability of 99.32% at a minimum elevation angle of 40 degrees, exceeding that of optimized HOM--TTT (O-HT) and least-delay (LD) satellite selection by 1.67 and 1.41 percentage points, respectively. The policy maintains service availability above 97.52% as the minimum elevation angle increases to 55 degrees, demonstrating its ability to sustain high service availability under stricter elevation constraints.