Kho Kho Model: A Novel Technique for Efficient Handoff in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks

The highly mobile nature of VANET implies that the nodes involved are constantly disconnecting and reconnecting as they switch between access points or move out of the range of their access points. In such scenarios, seamless connectivity is essential, especially when emergency services are involved. Handoff is a process in wireless communication that takes care of the switching process that happens between access points whenever a mobile device moves from one point to another. In a dynamic scenario involving vehicular nodes, this switching needs to take place between a mobile node or a fixed access point (known as RSUs), as quickly as possible. To this end, this research work proposes a novel handoff method known as the Kho Kho Model - which is loosely based on the traditional Indian sport of the same name. The model groups together nodes that are moving in the same direction, thereby effectively reducing the amount of processing required to perform handoff for a set of nodes. The use of ANN have helped to improve handoff since it can help in making decisions quickly by making use of multiple parameters including signal strength, noise, direction, and others. To improve the efficiency of the proposed handoff model, RBFNN has been used in this research. The proposed model was implemented using NS-3 simulator. The results have shown that the proposed method has a slightly better improvement in the overall NRO, a reduced average delay and reduced jitter compared to the existing handoff method employed by the IEEE 802.11p standard.