Reducing scanning latency in WiMAX enabled VANETs

Abstract

WiMAX offers many promising features such as high data rate, low deployment cost and a wide coverage, which makes it suitable for Vehicular Ad hoc NETworks (VANETs). However, a smooth handover for various real-time applications supported by VANETs is a challenge. In this paper, we therefore propose an efficient network assisted handover scheme which reduces the scanning latency faced by vehicles during handover process. During handover, a serving RSU will perform the selection and pre-authorization of a target RSU for a vehicle based on its velocity. In addition, the serving RSU also provides the vehicle with channel information and estimated time to start scanning in order to get associated with its target RSU. Through NS-2 simulations, it is observed that our proposed scheme efficiently reduces the overall scanning delay and iterations commonly faced by vehicles.