To reduce power consumption and reuse the limited radio spectrum resources, a cellular network was formed. Cell size is one of the factors in the channel reuse rate. Basically, the channel reuse rate in a smaller cell size is higher than the channel reuse rate in a bigger cell size. Micro-mobility is therefore the inevitable direction for future mobile systems. Frequent and fast movements usually characterize micro-mobility. A cellular architecture would then present a challenge to the frequent handover procedures for a smaller cell size would usually induce a higher handoff frequency.

In addition to cellular networks, the ad-hoc network is another network architecture for wireless networks. The ad-hoc network is a non-infrastructure architecture; in which nodes can access services from one another regardless where they are. An excellent routing protocol is crucial for an ad-hoc networking to function at high performance. The main difference between a cellular environment and ad-hoc network is that the ad-hoc method has no fixed infrastructure, allowing nodes to communicate with one another at any time and anywhere.

We have mentioned that micro-mobility in a cellular environment would introduce a greater number of handoffs than before. The handoff probability drives the mobile IP mechanism due to signal changes. Using the Mobile IP mechanism, handoff breaking would take place within a micro-mobility environment. Therefore, in this paper, some handoff strategies that take the advantage of the ad-hoc mechanism to improve the handoff performance are investigated.