Paper Info
Title
A fast MAC layer handoff protocol for WiFi-based wireless networks
Abstract
In next generation mobile heterogeneous networks, WiFi-based wireless networks are becoming important components, because WiFi devices are widely used in laptops, PDAs and other mobile computing machines. In a WiFi-based wireless network, handoff management is a key service, as the radio range of the WiFi device is limited. Moreover, providing seamless roaming in wireless networks is mandatory for supporting realtime applications in a mobile environment, such as VoIP, online games, and eConference. Recently, many solutions have been introduced to reduce MAC layer handoff latency; however, these solutions consider every mobile node separately, which would not be suitable for a large-scale environment. This paper proposes a novel MAC layer handoff protocol for large-scale WiFi-based wireless networks to support seamless real-time applications. In our scheme, before the mobile node starts initiating the MAC layer handoff process, it selects several neighboring nodes to help it scan available channels. All channels are divided into groups and scanned by these neighbors separately. Therefore, the number of scanning channels in each node is reduced, and scanning latency is minimized. According to simulation results in ns2, we conclude that our scheme can shorten MAC layer handoff latency greatly, and also achieve seamless handoff in terms of loss ratio of data packets.
Year
DOI
Venue
2010
10.1109/LCN.2010.5735794
LCN
Keywords
Field
DocType
mac layer handoff latency,mac layer handoff process,mobile environment,wifi device,mobile node,handoff management,novel mac layer handoff,fast mac layer handoff,seamless handoff,mobile computing machine,wifi-based wireless network,wireless networks,protocols,switches,wireless network,mobile computing,voip,mobile computer,next generation networks,mobile communication,heterogeneous network
Mobile computing,Wireless network,Next-generation network,Computer science,Network packet,Computer network,Heterogeneous network,Roaming,Mobile telephony,Handover,Embedded system
Conference
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0742-1303
3
0.42
References 
Authors
10
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Zhenxia Zhang113411.76
Richard W. Pazzi215916.95
Azzedine Boukerche34301418.60