Performance Analysis Of Handover In WiMAX Network

Wireless communications have seen remarkable progress in the information theoryfield. The increasing numbers of users with the modern internet applications have broughtsignificant tasks which make the design becoming more and more complex for the futuregeneration of wireless systems. Besides, advances studied are being carried out to promoteuseful system solutions with an aim to respond the high demand in terms of new servicestaking into account the characteristics of the environment where the deployment shouldtake place.WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) has been recentlypresented as a revolutionary system in wireless networks providing last-mile connectivitydue to its large coverage area, low cost of deployment and high speed data rate. It is awireless networking system based on the IEEE802.16standard. It has been designed fromthe outset as a broadband technology capable of delivering triple play services (voice, data,and video).In WiMAX, mobility is one of the leading characteristics that wireless mobiletechnology offers for the end nodes. To maintain user communications withoutinterruption, while on the move, even with high speeds is one of the main mobilitychallenges. The communication interruption is referred to as Handover (HO). It refers tothe process in which an MS migrates from the air interface provided by one BS to an airinterface provided another BS.In order to support the reliable communication mechanism in a highly mobile anddynamic environment, some types of handover have been adopted. The WiMAXspecification support three types of handover: the Hard Handover (HHO), the MacroDiversity Handover (MDHO) and the Fast Base Station Switching (FBSS). Thesehandover types have significant consequences in terms of delay and packet loss. However,in our work, we only emphasized on the hard handover. The handover delay makes severedegradation in system performance when implemented in real-time applications, i.e., videostreaming, VoIP, data transmission, etc. The main aim of this thesis is to analyze the performance of handover in WiMAX networkin terms of handover delay, packet loss, throughput and WiMAX delay using QPSK scheme over VoIP application.Hence further works can be extended to other types of handover such as macro-diversityand fast base station switching to reduce packet loss and achieve low handover latencies.