Advancement Through Research
Deployment of IEEE 802.11n wireless local area network (WLAN) is very popular due to quick installation, low cost and higher data rate of about 600Mbps. The backward compatible 802.11n could not utilize its new features fully in the presence of legacy 802.11a/b/g nodes. The existence of pspsuch legacy nodes in the 802.11n network is common today since the users tend to upgrade their devices slowly. The performance anomaly caused by the legacy nodes have to be minimized in WLANs for maximizing the quality of service (QoS). In this paper we have proposed a QoS based handoff algorithm which helps in minimizing the impact of legacy nodes on 802.11n nodes by performing either Level 2 or Level 3 handoff based on the mobile type, ongoing application’s type (i.e. real-time or non-real-time), required bandwidth, subnet ID, acceptable packet delay and network condition. The primary objective of our proposed work is to isolate the 802.11n nodes from the legacy nodes, eliminate the number of ungainful handoffs, giving preference to Level 2 than Level 3 handoff for reducing the handoff latency, improve the individual node’s throughput, decrease the individual node’s packet delay, and improve the overall network throughput significantly. Simulation results show that the proposed handoff algorithm improves both individual mobile node performance and overall network throughput significantly.
L2 Handoff, L3 Handoff, WLAN, Legacy Nodes, QoS, Throughput, Packet Delay
