Toward Predictive Handover Mechanism in Software-Defined Enterprise Wi-Fi Networks

Abstract

In an enterprise Wi-Fi network, Mobile users may be covered by multiple enterprise access points (APs). To optimize resource allocation, a soft handover is require in which the user's device is seamlessly transferred from one AP to another, and this decision made centrally by a Wi-Fi network controller. Unfortunately, state-of-the-art soft handover mechanisms are often designed to optimize resources from the network provider's point of view and do not take into account user's real-time behaviours, which may affect user's Quality of Experience (QoE). In this paper, a new machine learning (ML)-based method presented to find an optimal handover mechanism. This method allows to predict whether the handover that is going to happen will maintain QoE when users are moving inside a building. Our proposed method improves 34% of user throughput compared to state-of-the-art algorithms.