Seamless soft handoff protocols

Service reliability is a key performance indicator for a Future Force battlefield network. In a mobile wireless ad-hoc network in support of the Future Force, frequent node movement combined with volatile RF environment often results in fluctuation in link quality and hence frequent network topology change. This can severely hamper reliable data transmission. Most existing techniques proposed in the literature on soft handoff are for commercial cellular network, and mostly for voice applications. Ad hoc networking does not have a fixed infrastructure and hence handoff protocols should not depend on fixed centralized controllers. To the best of our knowledge, there is no existing research or implementation of seamless soft handoff for mobile ad hoc networks or Future Force Networks. Therefore, San Diego Research Center (SDRC) and Telcordia Technologies, both with a proven ARMY-funded research track record, propose to develop a coordinated, seamless multi-layer soft handoff protocol suite for mobile ad hoc networks. We believe the solution proposed here, which utilizes a proactive "make before break" approach to send information over multiple paths combining with efficient coding techniques, can significantly improve service reliability and user perceived QoS, and in the meanwhile, achieve optimal network resource utilization through cross-layer interactions.