Novel handoff concepts for roadside networks using mechanisms of IEEE 802.11k & IEEE 802.11v

The employment of real-time capable handoff mechanisms for high-speed mobile stations represents one of the key challenges for adopting IEEE 802.11 technology as a basic communication technology for roadside networks in vehicular communication networks (VCNs), especially for real-time value added services such as VoIP. To enable real-time capable handoff mechanism in such environments, the mobility awareness of associated stations (STAs) can be used to significantly reduce the scanning delays within handoff process. Although IEEE 802.11k and 802.11v define several mechanisms that could be used to enhance the handoff process with location awareness functionality, none of the known handoff solutions combine those mechanisms in a unified standard-conform handoff solution. This paper introduces a set of three novel handoff concepts that combine mechanisms of 802.11k,r,v in order to provide real-time capable handoff mechanisms that can be used for VCNs' applications, especially in combination with value added services. All the proposed handoff mechanisms in this paper are vender-independent from STAs perspective, i.e., for all STAs supporting 802.11k,r,v standards.