An Efficient Handoff Scheme for WiMAX Networks with Load Balancing

ABSTRACT: The IEEE 802.16e-2005 standard Mobile WiMAX is the technology which provides wireless access to hundreds of users over long distances with high data rates. The Mobile users may have high mobility; to support this mobility and guarantee continuous connection in Mobile WiMAX when the mobile station travels far from the coverage area of its servicing base station, WiMAX must support handoff. Handoff is the process of switching between the base stations. During the period of the handoff process, the mobile station leaves the connection with the serving base station and hence leads to temporarily stopping running services. The efficiency of the mobile wireless network is affected by the handoff latency which occurs during the handoff process, as a result of scanning, ranging with the neighbor base stations and authentication, and registration with the target base station. In this thesis, we propose a new handoff scheme for Mobile WiMAX using the handoff prediction table in order to minimize the handoff latency and also balance the load between base stations. The handoff prediction table is used to expect the next base station, so the mobile station does not need to scan all neighboring base stations.” Performance analyses of the proposed scheme were carried out and the results show that our proposed scheme can decrease the latency compared with the standard WiMAX and other previously proposed schemes. Also, the results show that load balancing can be achieved between base stations by using the proposed scheme. Keywords: WiMAX, Handoff, Handoff prediction table, Handoff latency. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………