SDN-based Handover in Future WLAN

Presently, the smart devices consumers prefer IEEE 802.11-based wireless local area network (WLAN) to access the Internet due to ease of access, low cost, tremendous throughput, and provision for multimedia applications. However, traditional WLAN suffers from a critical issue regarding handover management because it has not been well-announced in IEEE 802.11 according to future Internet demands. Researchers argue that Software Defined Network (SDN) be future Internet technology revolution that brings significant impact on a wireless network. In this paper, we propose a framework within the SDN paradigm, which enables mobility management, load balancing, and position management applications on top of the centralized controller. The proposed framework implements load targeted handover (LTH) scheme for mobile stations to offers seamless handover and targeted association with underloaded APs. We evaluate LTH approach in a simulation environment then implement in real-time WLAN tested, and results demonstrate that SDN-enabled handover process leads to consistent throughput as compared to a traditional approach.