Context caching using neighbor graphs for fast handoffs in a wireless network

Abstract

User mobility in wireless data networks is increasing because of technological advances, and the desire for voice and multimedia applications. These applications, however, require handoffs between base stations to be fast to maintain the quality of the connections. Previous work on context transfer for fast handoffs has focused on reactive, i.e. the context transfer occurs after the mobile station has associated with the next base station or access router, methods. In this paper, we describe the use of a novel and efficient data structure, neighbor graphs, which captures dynamically the mobility topology of a wireless network as a means for pre-positioning the station's context at the potential next base stations-ensuring that the station's context remains one hop ahead. From experimental and simulation results, we find that the use of neighbor graphs reduces the layer 2 handoff latency due to reassociation by an order of magnitude from 15.37ms to 1.69ms, and that the effectiveness of the approach improves dramatically as user mobility increases.

Predictive mobile IP handover for vehicular networks

“…This way, the protocol can be easily implemented and self-maintained. The method advances a neighbor discovery approach previously proposed by A. Mishra et al [19].…”

Multichannel Virtual Access Points for Seamless Handoffs in IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networks

“…They fall into the following main categories: (1) reducing AP scanning (probe) time by using different strategies of channel scanning such as a proactive scan [6], a selective scan [7], eavesdropping [8], [9], and (2) reducing the authentication and reassociation time such as proactive distribution of authentication information [10].…”

Wireless Network Security and Interworking

“…7 Security context may include the following [65]: 1) authentication state: identifiers of the client and previous authentication result; 2) authorization state: services and functions authorized to the MN; 3) communication security parameters: encryption algorithms, session keys such as encryption and decryption keys, and message authentication keys. Context transfer has been considered as a solution in intranetwork handoffs [60], [66]- [68]. In the remainder of this section, we consider interdomain context transfer to support and facilitate interdomain handoffs.…”

“…For intradomain handoffs, [68] exploits neighbor graphs to directly transfer context from oAP to potential nAPs.…”