Dynamic optimization of neighbor list to reduce changeover latency for wi-fi networks
Lina Hao, Bryan Ng, Ying Qu · 2017
Mobility management is one of the unresolved challenges in IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi). The IEEE 802.11 standard was originally designed for indoor networks whereby STAs (mobile hosts/stations) are mostly stationary and mobility was not a critical issue. However, as the STAs move between access points, there is a significant disruption to keep on-going data connections because of changeover latency. The changeover latency consists of scanning latency, authentication and re-association latency, and previous studies have shown that scanning delay accounting for more than 90% of the total latency. In this paper, we propose a new neighbor list mechanism to reduce scanning latency and improves mobility management in Wi-Fi networks.