Abstract
This work investigates handover in hybrid light fidelity (LiFi) and wireless fidelity (WiFi) networks (HLWNets). In such a network, the handover process becomes challenging due to two main factors: i) the relatively short coverage range of a single access point (AP), and ii) the largely overlapping coverage areas of different networks. As a result, HLWNets are susceptible to frequent handovers. To reduce the handover rate, the concept of handover skipping (HS) was introduced, which enables handovers between non-adjacent APs. However, conventional HS methods rely on knowledge about the user's trajectory, which is not readily available at the AP. In this paper, a novel HS scheme is proposed on the basis of reference signal received power (RSRP) and its rate of change, with an adaptive network preference adopted. Since RSRP is commonly used in the existing handover schemes, the proposed method requires no additional signalling between the user and the AP. Simulation results show that the new method can effectively reduce unnecessary handovers, especially those between LiFi and WiFi. Compared to the standard and trajectory-based handover schemes, the proposed method improves network throughput by up to about 120% and 30%, respectively.
Highlights
LIGHT fidelity (LiFi) [2] is a wireless communication technology complementary to wireless fidelity (WiFi), and has the potential to address the problem of spectrum scarcity in radio frequency (RF)
All LiFi access point (AP) are assumed to use the same level of transmission power, while power control for ultra-dense networks is feasible through methods such as [19]
A novel handover scheme was proposed for hybrid LiFi and WiFi network (HLWNet)
Summary
An ultra-dense network, mobile users may experience frequent handovers if the signal strength strategy (SSS) is used. The authors in [7] developed a topology-aware skipping scheme, based on the chord length of the cell This method has to predict the user’s trajectory in order to obtain the length of the movement path within the coverage area of a certain AP. A VHO normally requires a much longer processing time than a HHO due to different media access control (MAC) protocols [11] Another point worth noting is that in a HLWNet, the coverage areas of LiFi and WiFi largely overlap each other.
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