Movement direction-based handover scanning for mobile WiMAX

Mobile WiMAX is a broadband technology that is capable of delivering triple play services (voice, data, and video). However, mobility in WiMAX system is still an issue when the mobile station (MS) moves and be handovered between base stations (BSs). This issue can cause unnecessary neighboring BS scanning and association, handover delay, and MAC overhead which may affect real-time applications. In this paper, the MS movement direction prediction (MMDP) based MS scanning to overcome the mobile WiMAX handover issues is presented. In this scheme, only potential BS candidates will be chosen for scanning purpose. Hence, the MS scanning process reputation will be reduced with these shortlisted BS candidates instead of scanning all neighbors BSs. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme reduces total scanning delay and scanning interval duration by 25% and 50% respectively.