Bio-inspired Seamless Vertical Handover Algorithm for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

One of the most important factors to implement VANET is by considering the variety of wireless networks available around the city as well as the vehicles traffic scenarios. However, by providing a diverse range of wireless access technologies, it is necessary to provide continuous network connectivity as well as selecting the most suitable network technology and performance. Many researchers have worked on building algorithms for selecting the best network to improve the handover process. However, with high-speed vehicles mobility, the vertical handover process became the most challenging task in order to achieve realtime network selection. This paper proposes a bio-inspired network selection algorithm influenced by insect's behaviour which combines Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The proposed algorithm is applied to process multi-criteria parameters to evaluate the best available network and then execute the handover process seamlessly. The results demonstrate the benefits of the proposed Multi-Criteria ABC-PSO method by reducing the handover decision delays by 25%. It gives the optimum performance in terms of network selections and reduces the handover latency by 14.5%. The proposed algorithm also reduces the number of unnecessary handovers by 48% for three different mobility scenarios based on traffic environments (highway, urban and traffic jam).