After 12 months of work, the objectives of the LVAP project have been accomplished. A solution has been investigated to avoid some of the problems that affect our domestic wifi networks.
It is usual that many homes have more than a single WiFi AP (known as “router”). We usually have the router provided by the network operator and, in many cases, we add another one, in order to improve the coverage in some zones of the house.
This may cause some problems: for example, our mobile phone can get connected to one of the routers, even if we move to another room so we are closer to the other. This problem is known as the “sticky client,” as a device is stuck to a router, missing the opportunity to connect to a closer one, which would probably provide much better coverage.
During the last 12 months, researchers from the CeNIT group of I3A, jointly with personnel from Orange Labs, have cooperated to develop a solution that allows the network to choose the best suited router on each moment. In addition, the handoff between a router and the other are really fast: between 30 and 80 milliseconds. Therefore, your Fornite game and your YouTube video will not be interrupted, even if you move from the living room to the bedroom.
The COVID-19 crisis has made it necessary for the researchers to resort to creative solutions, as it was impossible to go to the lab in order to physically move the wifi equipment.
Picture: Meeting in Paris, June 2019
Researcher: José Mª Saldaña. jsaldana@unizar.es · +34 976 762 698 · +34 635 802 724
