Patent ID: 8467348

Claim:
A method of managing a mobile station which is associated with a serving Access Point and interacting with a candidate Access Point for handoff while roaming, comprising: initially maintaining the mobile station in a default idle stable state at a minimum level of activity and power consumption sufficient to receive an incoming call using an autonomous station connection manager, wherein the autonomous station connection manager maintains an association of the mobile station with the serving Access Point; while in said default idle stable state, periodically polling according to a polling period and scanning calls coming into the mobile station using DTIM (Delivery Traffic Indication Message) to detect the candidate Access Point, wherein the polling period is determined by: estimating an implementation dependent inactivity time out of each serving Access Point using a timer ramp up procedure; and using the estimated time out to optimally set up the polling period; sending a null frame to trigger corresponding frame transmission at the detected candidate Access Point; verifying if the null frame is acknowledged by the detected candidate Access Point, and if the null frame is acknowledged, then configuring the autonomous station connection manager for: checking connection status between the mobile station and the detected candidate Access Point, initiating re-authentication and re-association of the mobile station with the detected candidate Access Point for handoff as needed using an authentication and association keep alive algorithm; and switching the mobile station to an active state until end of packet exchange as managed internally; and if the null frame is not acknowledged, resuming scanning to update an Access Point list prior to joining a newly found candidate Access Point via authentication and association states.