Seamless handoff scheme in Wi-Fi and WiMAX heterogeneous networks

With the development of wireless communication technology, various wireless networks have been deployed. Heterogeneous networks will be dominant in the next generation wireless networks. In such networks, providing a seamless handoff and quality of service (QoS) guarantees is one of the key issues for real-time services. In this paper, we propose a horizontal handoff scheme that reduces the horizontal handoff latency based on the location and movement pattern of a mobile node (MN). We also present a vertical handoff scheme for providing seamless services between Wi-Fi and WiMAX networks. Finally, by performance evaluation using computer simulations, we show that the proposed scheme can reduce the handoff latency significantly.