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Achieving seamless handoffs via backhaul support in Wireless Mesh Networks

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Abstract

In Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs), mobile clients may experience frequent handoffs due to the relatively small transmission range of the mesh routers. Each handoff may lead to packet delays and/or packet losses, which limits the performance of real-time applications over WMNs. In this work, we propose BASH—a Backhaul-Aided Seamless Handoff scheme. BASH takes advantage of the wireless backhaul feature of WMNs, and allows a mobile station to directly access the backhaul channel to probe the neighboring mesh routers. Our work shows that by utilizing the wireless backhaul, BASH (1) reduces the probing latency and, thus, the Layer-2 handoff latency; (2) allows partial overlap of the Layer-2 and Layer-3 handoffs, reducing the overall handoff latency; and (3) shortens the authentication latency by utilizing the transitivity of trust relationship. The experimental results show that BASH achieves an average Layer-2 handoff of 8.9 ms, which supports real-time applications during the handoff.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Center for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, 70504, USA

    Yan He & Dmitri Perkins

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  1. Yan He
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  2. Dmitri Perkins
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Correspondence to Yan He.

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He, Y., Perkins, D. Achieving seamless handoffs via backhaul support in Wireless Mesh Networks. Telecommun Syst 52, 1917–1930 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11235-011-9474-8

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