Similar to cellular phones, wireless networks enable users to turn on their computers almost anywhere in the world, to establish access to their home file servers, and to retrieve their files and email. The implementation of wireless networks presents new problems that cannot be solved by classical communication theory and that are not found in wired networks. For instance, when a mobile moves from the cell of its current base station to that of a new base station, all of the user's information must be transferred from the old base station to the new one without the user noticing any interruption in service. Such a process is termed a handoff. Additionally, mechanisms must be implemented for locating and keeping track of users as they move throughout a system.
Many protocols exploit the idea of geographic locality by implementing a hierarchical structure.
In this way, base stations only need to keep track of those mobile units beneath them in the hierarchy. The object of our project is to develop a fault-tolerant, robust wireless network. We are investigating a novel handoff protocol, called the Homing Algorithm, which allows users to transfer base stations efficiently and seamlessly.