QoS-aware fuzzy rule-based vertical handoff decision algorithm incorporating a new evaluation model for wireless heterogeneous networks

Kantubukta Vasu,Sudipta Mahapatra,Cheruvu Siva Kumar,Sumit Maheshwari

doi:10.1186/1687-1499-2012-322

Abstract

Abstract Abstract Next generation networks are envisioned to be heterogeneous in nature with an increase in demand towards ubiquitous services in wireless networks. As various networks have widely different characteristics, it is difficult to maintain the quality of service (QoS) after executing a handoff from one network to another network. Maintaining the QoS, based on applications, during the handoff in an heterogeneous networks needs an intelligent handoff decision mechanism. This article proposes a QoS-aware fuzzy rule-based vertical handoff mechanism that makes a multi-criteria-based decision, found to be effective for meeting the requirements of different applications in a heterogeneous networking environment. The QoS parameters considered are available bandwidth, end-to-end delay, jitter, and bit error rate. A new evaluation model is proposed using a non-birth–death Markov chain, in which the states correspond to the available networks. Simulation results show that compared to other vertical handoff algorithms, the proposed algorithm gives better performance for different traffic classes.

Highlights

Generation heterogeneous wireless networks require seamless mobility amongst the different access networks while maintaining the required level of quality of service (QoS) for applications, namely, high-speed data services, audio, video and multimedia applications
The simulation is carried out using Matlab and the results obtained are plotted in Figures 10, 11 and 12, respectively, for average E2EDelay, availability and average available bandwidth
The algorithm is simulated by considering the presence of three different types of networks, such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and wireless local area networks (WLANs) networks

Summary

Introduction

Generation heterogeneous wireless networks require seamless mobility amongst the different access networks while maintaining the required level of quality of service (QoS) for applications, namely, high-speed data services, audio, video and multimedia applications. The context information used in this is not enough to maintain the required QoS for various kinds of applications, which might be having widely different QoS requirements in terms of data rates, delay bounds and BERs. In [13,14,15], fuzzy logic-based vertical handover decision is applied by considering a combination of various parameters such as price, RSS variation, traffic, sojourn time, available network bandwidth, monetary cost, user preferences, dwell time, etc. In contrast to other works in the literature, in this article, we develop a simulation model to measure the performance of vertical handoff mechanisms in a heterogeneous wireless network environment The power of this evaluation model is that the mobility characteristics are taken care of automatically by considering different state, and connection lifetimes in the simulation. The score of each network is obtained by adding the normalized contributions from

Background

Results and discussions

Conclusions