Comparison between Vertical Handoff Decision Algorithms for Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The next generation wireless networks will support the vertical handoff mechanism in which users can maintain the connections when they switch from one network to another (e.g., from IEEE 802.11b to CDMA 1timesRTT network, and vice versa). Although various vertical handoff decision algorithms have been proposed in the literature recently, there is a lack of performance comparisons between different schemes. In this paper, we compare the performance between four vertical handoff decision algorithms, namely, MEW (multiplicative exponent weighting), SAW (simple additive weighting), TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution), and GRA (grey relational analysis). All four algorithms allow different attributes (e.g., bandwidth, delay, packet loss rate, cost) to be included for vertical handoff decision. Results show that MEW, SAW, and TOPSIS provide similar performance to all four traffic classes. GRA provides a slightly higher bandwidth and lower delay for interactive and background traffic classes