Minimization of Handoff Latency by Using GPS Based AP (Access Point) Map

Due to rapid growth in IEEE 802.11 based Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN), handoff has become a burning issue. A mobile node (MS) requires handoff when it travels out of the coverage area of its current access point (AP) and tries to associate with another AP. But handoff delays provide a serious barrier for such services to be made available to mobile platforms. Throughout the last few years there has been plenty of research aimed towards reducing the handoff delay incurred in the various levels of wireless communication. In this paper, we propose to reduce handoff latency for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks with map based on GPS. IEEE 802.11 uses 14 possible channels of which only the channels 1, 6 and 11 do not mutually overlap. As they are non-overlapping, the channels are expected to have a lower carrier-to-interference ratio (CI) compared to the other channels present under the same base station, which increases the channel‟s availability during handoff. Based on the GPS, when handoff criterions have been met, we design an algorithm to first scan the channels 1, 6 and 11, if present under the next Access Point (AP), to reduce the scanning delay. We also introduce pre-authentication mechanism, which will effectively reduce the message processing delay.