PRIME: A partial path establishment based handover management technique for QoS support in WiMAX based wireless mesh networks

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel handover management technique called PaRtIal path establishment based handover Management tEchnique (PRIME) for WiMAX based wireless mesh networks (WMNs). Different from the currently existing methods for WiMAX networks, PRIME addresses handover management in WiMAX WMNs deployed with distributed scheduling. In these networks, to continue the quality of service (QoS) constrained flows to a mobile node (MN) after its handover, a new path with the required bandwidth and which passes through its new base station (BS) needs to be established as quickly as possible. To address that issue, PRIME handles re-routing and scheduling issues of a handing over MN together. To provide lossless and seamless service, PRIME tries to establish new path(s) in the wireless mesh with the required bandwidth to the MN before it enters into the coverage area of the new BS. The present paper proposes a novel crossover node based partial path establishment algorithm to establish new path(s) which support QoS requirements of handoff calls. To analyze the performance of PRIME, the present paper proposes a multi-dimensional Markov model. Unlike previous models which analyze the performance of wireless networks, our proposed model represents nodes in terms of the number of transmission and reception available slots. The theoretical upper and lower bounds on the call dropping probabilities of handoff calls are obtained. To study the performance advantages of PRIME, we devise another handover management method called RFPHMT which does not use the concept of crossover base station in the new path establishment of a handing over node. The performance of PRIME and RFPHMT are compared in terms of call dropping probabilities and call setup delays. PRIME shows superior performance than RFPHMT. For a random topology, at a high call arrival rate of 1/2000 (calls/milliseconds), the handover call dropping probability of PRIME is 40% less than that of RFPHMT. The call dropping probabilities of PRIME with the simulations are always within the theoretical bounds which proves that the obtained bounds are close to the real call dropping probabilities.