Multi-criteria Handoff Decision making Algorithm for Seamless Mobility in Heterogenous Wireless Networks

Abstract

Wireless networks have been through many transformations to provide Quality of Service (QoS) and seamless mobility. Handoff management plays a vital role in maintaining quality of service while roaming. The focus of the paper is to develop a handoff technique for optimized handoff decision making. Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques are utilized for making decision where more than one contradicting parameter are involved. Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) is used for weight calculation and Fuzzy Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) decides the rank of available networks. The proposed technique utilizes six network parameters i.e., received signal strength, bandwidth, signal to interference & noise ratio, delay, packet loss, and bit error rate for weights calculation under different traffic classes and three decision makers i.e., network, mobile node, and user preference for optimized handoff. The results show that the proposed technique effectively classify the best available network in terms of their rank and reduces the number of unnecessary handoffs.