Optimal scanning strategy for vehicular Wi-Fi

As many open Wi-Fi access points are deployed in hotspots for public use, research is being conducted to use them opportunistically from moving vehicles. A key to make use of the short, opportunistic connections between moving vehicles and open Wi-Fi access points is the ability to scan for open access points quickly, but current implementation of the IEEE 802.11 standards has a long scanning delay. In this paper we compare some scanning methods in the literature and propose an optimal scanning strategy that minimizes the scanning time for vehicular Wi-Fi. Through mathematical analysis and computer simulations, we show that this strategy can find an open access point in the minial average number of scans and thus gives moving vehicles longer connections to receive and deliver data.