Handoff management scheme based on frame loss rate and RSSI prediction for IEEE 802.11 networks

Abstract

This paper proposes a frame loss rate (FLR) and received signal strength indicator (RSSI) prediction based handoff management scheme to reduce the ping-pong effect caused by the purely RSSI based handoff decision schemes in IEEE 802.11 networks. The proposed scheme is performed by each mobile station (MS) in a decentralized manner. In the proposed scheme, the FLR information is used as handoff trigger criterion. To perceive the change trends of wireless link thus reducing the target AP selection time, the proposed scheme adopts polynomial regression-based RSSI prediction approach. The predicted RSSI together with FLR information is used for target access point (AP) selection. Moreover, we construct neighboring AP information list (NAIL) for MSs to store the above information. Therefore, the proposed scheme can also be called NAIL-based handoff management scheme. The results indicate that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce the invalid handoffs and avoid the ping-pong effect.