Minimization of Handoff Failure by Introducing a New Cell Coverage Area in the Handoff Region
Presently, IEEE 802.11 based wireless local area networks (WLAN) have been widely deployed for business and personal applications. The main issue regarding wireless network technology is handoff or hand over management, especially in urban areas, due to the limited coverage of access points (APs) or base stations (BS). When a mobile station (MS) moves outside the range of its current access point (AP) it needs to perform a link layer handover. This causes data loss and interruption in communication. Many people have applied efficient location management techniques in the literature of next generation wireless system (NGWS). However, seamless handover management still remains an open matter of research. Here we propose a method to minimize the handoff failure probability by effectively placing a wireless local area network (WLAN) AP in the handoff region between two neighboring cells. The WLAN coverage, on one hand, provides an additional coverage in the low signal strength region, and on the other hand, relieves the congestion in the cellular network. Moreover, we perform the channel scanning (required for horizontal handover between the two base stations) within the WLAN coverage area, thus minimizing the handoff failure due to scanning delay.
Keywords: WLAN, IEEE 802.11, Handoff, Handoff latency, MS (mobile station)
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