MOHAN: Multi-Objective Handover for hybrid (LiFi-WiFi) Application-based Networks

Abstract

Recently the hybrid networks using the Light Fidelity (LiFi) and Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) have received significant attention due to their advantages of higher data rate. Such networks form the Hybrid LiFi-WiFi Networks (HLWNets). As the design and implementation of HLWNets are still in their early stages, it faces several problems. The vertical/horizontal handovers process becomes a challenging task in HLWNets due to the frequent mobility of the users, short coverage range of Access Point (AP), overlapping coverage regions of different networks (WiFi and LiWi). Designing efficient handover policies for HLWNets needs to address the multiple challenges like reducing handover frequency, mitigating the shadow/light path blockage, reducing communication delay/jitter, interference management, and data loss reduction. According to current research, there is a lack of a multi-objective handover mechanism for HLWNets. To end this, we propose a novel Multi-Objective Handover for hybrid Application-based Networks, i.e., HLWNets (MOHAN). The MOHAN protocol mainly addresses the two challenges shadow effect and interference management while performing the handovers. The MOHAN protocol performs handover initialization, target AP selection, and handover execution. During the periodic handover initialization phase, the proposed technique conquers both horizontal and vertical handovers, resulting in effective interference control in the network. The handover initialization phase decides the type of handover using the user mobility and received signal power to mitigate the shadow effects and interferences. In the target AP selection phase of vertical/horizontal, QoS-aware algorithms are designed to reduce the data loss, handover frequency, and interferences. The experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed MOHAN protocol using different network conditions compared to existing methods.