WLAN Cell Handoff Latency Abatement Using an FPGA Fuzzy Logic Algorithm Implementation

Abstract EN

Following the path toward 4 G set by its wireless siblings LTE and WiMax, IEEE 802.11 technology, universally known as WiFi, is evolving to become a high data rate QoS-enabled mobile platform.

The IEEE 802.11n standard yields data rates up to 450 Mbp s and the 802.11e standard ensures proficient QoS for real-time applications.

Still in need of better performance, multicell environments that provide extended coverage allow the mobile station nomadic passage beyond a single cell by means of cell dissociation-association process known as handoff.

This process poses a challenge for real-time applications like voice over IP (150 ms maximum delay) and video (200–400 ms) sessions, to give the user a seamless cell-crossing without data loss or session breakage.

It presented an approach of a predictive fuzzy Logic controller to reduce the channel scanning process to a tenth of the standard time, and its efficient FPGA implementation to speed up the processing time.

The algorithm of the fuzzy controller was implemented in C language.

Experimental results are provided.