Handoff Minimization in Wireless Networks With Group Mobility

When a user moves among a set of access points in a wireless network, the handoff operation occurs as a result of his getting constantly connected to multiple access points to get a desired service; however, frequent handoffs may disrupt his association in the network. This study aims to minimize the number of handoffs for a set of users. This problem is analyzed by considering two cases for the user’s movement: (i) each user can have his chosen path within the network, and (ii) all users move together and they have group mobility. In the first case, having the connectivity assumption; that is when a user “u” connects to an access point “a”, while “a” is available, “u” remains connected to “a”, this thesis proves that there is no competitive algorithm in an online setting for handoff minimization under connectivity assumption. However, in the second case, it proposes an optimal competitive ratio algorithm for the problem.