An Efficient MAC Layer Handoff Scheme for WiFi-Based Multichannel Wireless Mesh Networks

Compared to traditional wireless networks, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are more efficient in terms of deployment, configuration, and maintenance. However, connecting all routers through wireless connection in WMNs results in remarkably lower bandwidth of the network backbone. Multichannel technology, where non-interfering channels are used to enable mesh routers to send and receive packets simultaneously, has been extensively adopted to improve the throughput of WMNs, and providing seamless roaming in multichannel WMNs has become an important topic in WMN research. In this paper, a novel MAC layer handoff scheme is proposed as a means of minimizing handoff latency in WiFi-based multichannel WMNs for seamless communication in real-time applications. By designing a dynamic grouping algorithm for channel selection and allowing mesh routers to switch channels for probe message reply, this new scheme can shorten the waiting time for the detection of available access routers, decrease loss ratio of data packets during handoff, and consequently achieve smooth handoff in the MAC layer.