A QoS Based Algorithm for the Vertical Handover between WLAN IEEE 802.11e and WiMAX IEEE 802.16e

Abstract

Various wireless technologies have been proposed to fulfill the high data rate requirements for real time applications, such as video streaming and other real time applications, in the new wireless 4G and 5G eras. However, due to the complementary characteristics of some of these technologies, such as high coverage area with low date rate, or small coverage area with high date rate, solutions involving the integration between two types of these technologies have been suggested. Since among the user’s requirements in 4G wireless networks is to have access to the network resources anytime anywhere, IEEE 802.16e and IEEE 802.11e have been integrated to provide the users with seamless connectivity to network resources by supporting handover between them. This paper presents a vertical handover algorithm between IEEE 802.11e and IEEE 802.16e that satisfies the QoS requirements of the carried traffic. The optimal decision is obtained by taking into account the RSS received signal strength, user preferences, monetary cost, Mobile Node (MN) velocity and QoS such as data rate, delay, and BER. The proposed algorithm is based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) within an IEEE 802.21 framework. Four traffic-based profiles were proposed for best effort, conversational, streaming, and interactive applications. A simulation model was built to evaluate the proposed algorithm in terms of MN connectivity during vertical handover, average delay, throughput, blocking probability, and dropping probability. The results confirm that the proposed algorithm satisfied the QoS for the different types of traffic during vertical handover.