On Handoff Minimization in Wireless Networks: From a Navigation Perspective

Interactive wireless applications, like VoIP over wireless networks, desire high-quality links and smooth connectivity during user movement. In order to support seamless roaming in wireless networks, handoff optimization has attracted a lot of attention recently. Most existing approaches aim at reducing handoff latency in communication protocols. While these methods provide significant savings in handoff latency, frequent handoffs could still be crucial and problematic for interactive applications. In this paper, we propose a new perspective for handoff optimization by introducing navigation guidance to minimize the handoff frequency. We first formulate the navigation-driven handoff minimization problem, then propose an optimal algorithm and a localized algorithm to solve it. The optimal algorithm assumes global knowledge of AP locations and uses a navigation graph to find a minimal handoff frequency path. The localized algorithm, however, only uses neighbor AP locations for route selection, which is more practical in real applications. Implementation issues of the proposed algorithms are discussed and simulations based on real world AP deployment are used to evaluate their performance. Experiment results show that our algorithms reduce handoff frequency by at most 42% compared to existing strategies.