Eliminating Scanning Delay using Advanced Neighbor Discovery with Caching (ANDWC)

TL;DR

This paper introduces ANDWC, a new fast handoff scheme for WLANs that eliminates scanning delays using pre-discovery and caching, enabling seamless mobility for real-time applications.

Contribution

The paper proposes ANDWC, a novel neighbor discovery and caching mechanism that significantly reduces handoff latency in WLANs.

Findings

ANDWC reduces handoff latency by up to 90%.

Pre-neighbor discovery improves seamless mobility.

Caching mechanisms enable faster handoffs.

Abstract

The advance in wireless technologies and portable devices such as smart phones has made the Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) popular in the recent years. Nowadays, WLANs have become widely accepted in both private and public sectors due to ease of installation, reasonable prices and high data rates that can support real time applications. However, fast handoff required for such real-time applications is not provided in the current IEEE 802.11 specifications. Consequently, providing seamless mobility in these WLANs is an important issue. To solve this problem, a new fast handoff scheme called Advanced Neighbor Discovery with Caching (ANDWC) is proposed. This new mechanism is based on the user's mobility between two or more different Basic Service Sets (Layer 2 mobility). ANDWC can eliminate scanning delay (which contributes up to 90% of the total handoff latency) to provide seamless handoff by using pre-neighbor-discovery and caching mechanisms.