MOBILITY SUPPORT ARCHITECTURES FOR NEXT-GENERATION WIRELESS NETWORKS

With the convergence of the wireless networks and the Internet and the booming demand for multimedia applications, the next-generation (beyond the third generation, or B3G) wireless systems are expected to be all IP-based and provide real-time and non-real-time mobile services anywhere and anytime. Powerful and efficient mobility support is thus the key enabler to fulfil such an attractive vision by supporting various mobility scenarios. This thesis contributes to this interesting while challenging topic. After a literature review on mobility support architectures and protocols, the thesis starts presenting our contributions with a generic multi-layer mobility support framework, which provides a general approach to meet the challenges of handling comprehensive mobility issues. The cross-layer design methodology is introduced to coordinate the protocol layers for optimised system design. Particularly, a flexible and efficient cross-layer signalling scheme is proposed for interlayer interactions. The proposed generic framework is then narrowed down with several fundamental building blocks identified to be focused on as follows. As widely adopted, we assume that the IP-based access networks are organised into administrative domains, which are inter-connected through a global IP-based wired core network. For a mobile user who roams from one domain to another, macro (inter-domain) mobility management should be in place for global location tracking and effective handoff support for both real-time and non-real-lime applications. Mobile IP (MIP) and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) are being adopted as the two dominant standard-based macro-mobility architectures, each of which has mobility entities and messages in its own right. The work explores the joint optimisations and interactions of MIP and SIP when utilising the complementary power of both protocols. Two distinctive integrated MIP-SIP architectures are designed and evaluated, compared with their hybrid alternatives and other approaches. The overall analytical and simulation results shown significant performance improvements in terms of cost-efficiency, among other metrics. Subsequently, for the micro (intra-domain) mobility scenario where a mobile user moves across IP subnets within a domain, a micro mobility management architecture is needed to support fast handoffs and constrain signalling messaging loads incurred by intra-domain movements within the domain. The Hierarchical MIPv6 (HMIPv6) and the Fast Handovers for MIPv6 (FMIPv6) protocols are selected to fulfil the design requirements. The work proposes enhancements to these protocols and combines them in an optimised way. resulting in notably improved performances in contrast to a number of alternative approaches

Virtual Mobility Domains - A Mobility Architecture for the Future Internet

The advances in hardware and wireless technologies have made mobile communication devices affordable by a vast user community. With the advent of rich multimedia and social networking content, an influx of myriads of applications, and Internet supported services, there is an increasing user demand for the Internet connectivity anywhere and anytime. Mobility management is thus a crucial requirement for the Internet today. This work targets novel mobility management techniques, designed to work with the Floating Cloud Tiered (FCT) internetworking model, proposed for a future Internet. We derive the FCT internetworking model from the tiered structure existing among Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks, to define their business and peering relationships. In our novel mobility management scheme, we define Virtual Mobility Domains (VMDs) of various scopes, that can support both intra and inter-domain roaming using a single address for a mobile node. The scheme is network based and hence imposes no operational load on the mobile node. This scheme is the first of its kind, by leveraging the tiered structure and its hierarchical properties, the collaborative network-based mobility management mechanism, and the inheritance information in the tiered addresses to route packets. The contributions of this PhD thesis can be summarized as follows: · We contribute to the literature with a comprehensive analysis of the future Internet architectures and mobility protocols over the period of 2002-2012, in light of their identity and handoff management schemes. We present a qualitative evaluation of current and future schemes on a unified platform. · We design and implement a novel user-centric future Internet mobility architecture called Virtual Mobility Domain. VMD proposes a seamless, network-based, unique collaborative mobility management within/across ASes and ISPs in the FCT Internetworking model. The analytical and simulation-based handoff performance analysis of the VMD architecture in comparison with the IPv6-based mobility protocols presents the considerable performance improvements achieved by the VMD architecture. · We present a novel and user-centric handoff cost framework to analyze handoff performance of different mobility schemes. The framework helps to examine the impacts of registration costs, signaling overhead, and data loss for Internet connected mobile users employing a unified cost metric. We analyze the effect of each parameter in the handoff cost framework on the handoff cost components. We also compare the handoff performance of IPv6-based mobility protocols to the VMD. · We present a handoff cost optimization problem and analysis of its characteristics. We consider a mobility user as the primary focus of our study. We then identify the suitable mathematical methods that can be leveraged to solve the problem. We model the handoff cost problem in an optimization tool. We also conduct a mobility study - best of our knowledge, first of its kind - on providing a guide for finding the number of handoffs in a typical VMD for any given user\u27s mobility model. Plugging the output of mobility study, we then conduct a numerical analysis to find out optimum VMD for a given user mobility model and check if the theoretical inferences are in agreement with the output of the optimization tool

Wireless internet architecture and testbed for wineglass

One of the most challenging issues in the area of mobile communication is the deployment of IPbased wireless multimedia networks in public and business environments. The public branch may involve public mobile networks, like UMTS as 3G system, while the business branch introduces local radio access networks by means of W-LANs. Conventional mobile networks realise mobile specific functionality, e.g. mobility management or authentication and accounting, by implementing appropriate mechanisms in specific switching nodes (e.g. SGSN in GPRS). In order to exploit the full potential of IP networking solutions a replacement of these mechanisms by IP-based solutions might be appropriate. In addition current and innovative future services in mobile environments require at least soft-guaranteed, differentiated QoS. Therefore the WINE GLASS project investigates and implements enhanced IP-based techniques supporting mobility and QoS in a wireless Internet architecture. As a means to verify the applicability of the implemented solutions, location-aware services deploying both IP-mobility and QoS mechanisms will be implemented and demonstratedPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Mobile IP: state of the art report

Due to roaming, a mobile device may change its network attachment each time it moves to a new link. This might cause a disruption for the Internet data packets that have to reach the mobile node. Mobile IP is a protocol, developed by the Mobile IP Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group, that is able to inform the network about this change in network attachment such that the Internet data packets will be delivered in a seamless way to the new point of attachment. This document presents current developments and research activities in the Mobile IP area

A network mobility management architecture for a heteregeneous network environment

Network mobility management enables mobility of personal area networks and vehicular networks across heterogeneous access networks using a Mobile Router. This dissertation presents a network mobility management architecture for minimizing the impact of handoffs on the communications of nodes in the mobile network. The architecture addresses mobility in legacy networks without infrastructure support, but can also exploit infrastructure support for improved handoff performance. Further, the proposed architecture increases the efficiency of communications of nodes in the mobile network with counter parts in the fixed network through the use of caching and route optimization. The performance and costs of the proposed architecture are evaluated through empirical and numerical analysis. The analysis shows the feasibility of the architecture in the networks of today and in those of the near future.Verkkojen liikkuuvudenhallinta mahdollistaa henkilökohtaisten ja ajoneuvoihin asennettujen verkkojen liikkuvuuden heterogeenisessä verkkoympäristössä käyttäen liikkuvaa reititintä. Tämä väitöskirja esittää uuden arkkitehtuurin verkkojen liikkuvuudenhallintaan, joka minimoi verkonvaihdon vaikutuksen päätelaitteiden yhteyksiin. Vanhoissa verkoissa, joiden infrastruktuuri ei tue verkkojen liikkuvuutta, verkonvaihdos täytyy hallita liikkuvassa reitittimessa. Standardoitu verkkojen liikkuvuudenhallintaprotokolla NEMO mahdollistaa tämän käyttäen ankkurisolmua kiinteässä verkossa pakettien toimittamiseen päätelaitteiden kommunikaatiokumppaneilta liikkuvalle reitittimelle. NEMO:ssa verkonvaihdos aiheuttaa käynnissä olevien yhteyksien keskeytymisen yli sekunnin mittaiseksi ajaksi, aiheuttaen merkittävää häiriötä viestintäsovelluksille. Esitetyssä arkkitehtuurissa verkonvaihdon vaikutus minimoidaan varustamalla liikkuva reititin kahdella radiolla. Käyttäen kahta radiota liikkuva reititin pystyy suorittamaan verkonvaihdon keskeyttämättä päätelaitteiden yhteyksiä, mikäli verkonvaihtoon on riittävästi aikaa. Käytettävissa oleva aika riippuu liikkuvan reitittimen nopeudesta ja radioverkon rakenteesta. Arkkitehtuuri osaa myös hyödyntää infrastruktuurin tukea saumattomaan verkonvaihtoon. Verkkoinfrastruktuurin tuki nopeuttaa verkonvaihdosprosessia, kasvattaenmaksimaalista verkonvaihdos tahtia. Tällöin liikkuva reitin voi käyttää lyhyen kantaman radioverkkoja, joiden solun säde on yli 80m, ajonopeuksilla 90m/s asti ilman, että verkonvaihdos keskeyttää päätelaitteiden yhteyksiä. Lisäksi ehdotettu arkkitehtuuri tehostaa kommunikaatiota käyttäen cache-palvelimia liikkuvassa ja kiinteässä verkossa ja optimoitua reititystä liikkuvien päätelaitteiden ja kiinteässä verkossa olevien kommunikaatiosolmujen välillä. Cache-palvelinarkkitehtuuri hyödyntää vapaita radioresursseja liikkuvan verkon cache-palvelimen välimuistin päivittämiseen. Heterogeenisessä verkkoympäristossä cache-palvelimen päivitys suoritetaan lyhyen kantaman laajakaistaisia radioverkkoja käyttäen. Liikkuvan reitittimen siirtyessä laajakaistaisen radioverkon peitealueen ulkopuolelle päätelaitteille palvellaan sisältöä, kuten www sivuja tai videota cache-palvelimelta, säästäen laajemman kantaman radioverkon rajoitetumpia resursseja. Arkkitehtuurissa käytetään optimoitua reititystä päätelaitteiden ja niiden kommunikaatiokumppaneiden välillä. Optimoitu reititysmekanismi vähentää liikkuvuudenhallintaan käytettyjen protokollien langattoman verkon resurssien kulutusta. Lisäksi optimoitu reititysmekanismi tehostaa pakettien reititystä käyttäen suorinta reittiä kommunikaatiosolmujen välillä. Esitetyn arkkitehtuurin suorituskyky arvioidaan empiirisen ja numeerisen analyysin avulla. Analyysi arvioi arkkitehtuurin suorituskykyä ja vertaa sitä aikaisemmin ehdotettuihin ratkaisuihin ja osoittaa arkkitehtuurin soveltuvan nykyisiin ja lähitulevaisuuden langattomiin verkkoihin.reviewe

Mobile IP movement detection optimisations in 802.11 wireless LANs

The IEEE 802.11 standard was developed to support the establishment of highly flexible wireless local area networks (wireless LANs). However, when an 802.11 mobile node moves from a wireless LAN on one IP network to a wireless LAN on a different network, an IP layer handoff occurs. During the handoff, the mobile node's IP settings must be updated in order to re-establish its IP connectivity at the new point of attachment. The Mobile IP protocol allows a mobile node to perform an IP handoff without breaking its active upper-layer sessions. Unfortunately, these handoffs introduce large latencies into a mobile node's traffic, during which packets are lost. As a result, the mobile node's upper-layer sessions and applications suffer significant disruptions due to this handoff latency. One of the main components of a Mobile IP handoff is the movement detection process, whereby a mobile node senses that it is attached to a new IP network. This procedure contributes significantly to the total Mobile IP handover latency and resulting disruption. This study investigates different mechanisms that aim to lower movement detection delays and thereby improve Mobile IP performance. These mechanisms are considered specifically within the context of 802.11 wireless LANs. In general, a mobile node detects attachment to a new network when a periodic IP level broadcast (advertisement) is received from that network. It will be shown that the elimination of this dependence on periodic advertisements, and the reliance instead on external information from the 802.11 link layer, results in both faster and more efficient movement detection. Furthermore, a hybrid system is proposed that incorporates several techniques to ensure that movement detection performs reliably within a variety of different network configurations. An evaluation framework is designed and implemented that supports the assessment of a wide range of movement detection mechanisms. This test bed allows Mobile IP handoffs to be analysed in detail, with specific focus on the movement detection process. The performance of several movement detection optimisations is compared using handoff latency and packet loss as metrics. The evaluation framework also supports real-time Voice over IP (VoIP) traffic. This is used to ascertain the effects that different movement detection techniques have on the output voice quality. These evaluations not only provide a quantitative performance analysis of these movement detection mechanisms, but also a qualitative assessment based on a VoIP application

Investigations into micromobility issues in IP networks

Master'sMASTER OF SCIENC