Heterogeneous wireless network vertical handoff decision using hybrid multi-criteria decision-making technique

Abstract

The selection of the most appropriate network in a heterogeneous wireless environment is one of the critical issues to provide the best quality of service (QOS) to the users. The selection of an apt network among various alternatives is a kind of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. The objective of this paper is to develop an evaluation model based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP), grey relational analysis (GRA) and technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). FAHP is used to compute the criteria weights whereas GRA and TOPSIS are combined together and proposed as GRA-TOPSIS for obtaining the final ranking of network alternatives. This study comprises five alternatives such as wireless local area network (WLAN), general packet radio service (GPRS), universal mobile telecommunication (UMTS), code-division multiple-access (CDMA), worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) and ten evaluation criteria namely bandwidth, latency, jitter, throughput, bit error rate, packet loss, re-transmission, cost, security and preference to select the appropriate network.