QoS-aware channel scanning for IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN

Channel scanning is an important aspect of seamless handovers since it is required in order to find a target point of attachment (PoA). In the IEEE 802.11 WLAN, scanning of other channels causes service disruptions with the current AP so that the provided quality of service (QoS) will be degraded seriously during the handoff. In this paper, we propose a QoS supported dynamic channel scanning algorithm. The scanning period is scheduled to guarantee the user’s QoS requirements while the scan progresses. The simulation results show that the proposed mechanism reduces service disruptions and provides the desired quality of service to users during the scanning period.