Design and implemention of a novel MAC layer handoff protocol for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks

In recent years, IEEE 802.11 wireless networks become one of the most important components in wireless networks, since compared with other wireless technologies, IEEE 802.11 devices are inexpensive and easier to be configured. To provide seamless roaming in the IEEE 802.11 wireless networks, MAC layer handoff latency should be minimized to support real-time applications. This paper proposes a novel MAC layer handoff protocol over IEEE 802.11 wireless networks by using an advertisement message. The experiment results illustrate that our solution can reduce MAC layer handoff latency to less than 50 ms required by real-time applications.