A Use of Fuzzy TOPSIS to Improve the Network Selection in Wireless Multiaccess Environments

Abstract

Constantly faster, mobile terminals are developing, as well as wireless networks, to satisfy the growth of “Always Best Connected” demand. Users nowadays want to access the best available wireless network, either from 3GPP or IEEE group technologies, wherever they are, without losing their sessions. Consequently, mobile terminals must seamlessly transfer the communications to another access technology (vertical handover) if needed, as they often move into heterogeneous wireless environments. This work aims to optimize the network selection step in the vertical handover process. Multiattribute Decision-Making methods naturally fit this context. Nevertheless, they make wrong handover decisions sometimes, due to imprecise data collected from the metrics. This manuscript presents the use of a hybrid method, combining the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal situation and fuzzy analytic network process, in the network selection, to improve the quality of service and avoid, as much as possible, unnecessary handovers. The results demonstrate that this combination is the best, compared to the other methods of the same type in the network selection context.