Fast Forced Handover Technique for Load Balancing in Mobile WiMAX for Real-time Applications

Abstract

Mobile WiMAX is a wireless Metropolitan Area Network technology based on IEEE 802.16e standard which supports mobility for users. Huge number of mobile devices being used in WiMAX networks more than ever. However, these devices sustaining poor service quality and long delay due to network congestion. In order to solve these problems, a load balancing technique using Base Station (BS) initiated directed handover is proposed in this paper. The proposed technique called Fast Forced Handover Technique (FFHT). FFHT monitors the load-state in each BS and collect information about load-states of Neighbor BSs (NBSs). When congestion occurred at any BS, FFHT chooses Target BS (TBS). Furthermore, FFHT chooses candidate Mobile Stations to perform directed handover. In terms of handover delay, FFHT exchanges pre-handover control messages between serving BS (SBS) and NBSs to reduce delay and packet loss during handover process. FFHT is implemented using OPNET modeler 17.1. Its performance is evaluated based on an extensive simulation. The evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed technique distributes load efficiently in the whole network using light amount of control messages. FFHT assures Quality of Service (QoS) for all users in the network. The simulation shows how FFHT is suitable for real-time applications.