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

Host mobility management with identifier-locator split protocols in hierarchical and flat networks

Includes abstractIncludes bibliographical references.As the Internet increasingly becomes more mobile focused and overloaded with mobile hosts, mobile users are bound to roam freely and attach to a variety of networks. These different networks converge over an IP-based core to enable ubiquitous network access, anytime and anywhere, to support the provision of services, that is, any service, to mobile users. Therefore, in this thesis, the researcher proposed network-based mobility solutions at different layers to securely support seamless handovers between heterogeneous networks in hierarchical and flat network architectures

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

Network layer access control for context-aware IPv6 applications

As part of the Lancaster GUIDE II project, we have developed a novel wireless access point protocol designed to support the development of next generation mobile context-aware applications in our local environs. Once deployed, this architecture will allow ordinary citizens secure, accountable and convenient access to a set of tailored applications including location, multimedia and context based services, and the public Internet. Our architecture utilises packet marking and network level packet filtering techniques within a modified Mobile IPv6 protocol stack to perform access control over a range of wireless network technologies. In this paper, we describe the rationale for, and components of, our architecture and contrast our approach with other state-of-the- art systems. The paper also contains details of our current implementation work, including preliminary performance measurements

IP Flow Mobility in PMIPv6 Based Networks: Solution Design and Experimental Evaluation

The ability of offloading selected IP data traffic from 3G to WLAN access networks is considered a key feature in the upcoming 3GPP specifications, being the main goal to alleviate data congestion in cellular networks while delivering a positive user experience. Lately, the 3GPP has adopted solutions that enable mobility of IP-based wireless devices relocating mobility functions from the terminal to the network. To this end, the IETF has standardized Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6), a protocol capable to hide often complex mobility procedures from the mobile devices. This paper, in line with the mentioned offload requirement, further extends PMIPv6 to support dynamic IP flow mobility management across access wireless networks according to operator policies. Considering energy consumption as a critical aspect for hand-held devices and smart-phones, we assess the feasibility of the proposed solution and provide an experimental analysis showing the cost (in terms of energy consumption) of simultaneous packet transmission/reception using multiple network interfaces. The end-to-end system design has been implemented and validated by means of an experimental network setup.European Community´s Seventh Framework ProgramPublicad

Advanced Transport Protocols for Wireless and Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

This thesis comprises transport protocols in the following different areas of research: Fast Handover allows mobile IP end-devices to roam between wireless access routers without interruptions while communicating to devices in an infrastructure (e.g., in the Internet). This work optimizes the Fast Handover algorithm and evaluates the performance of the transport protocols UDP and TCP during fast handovers via measurements. The following part of the thesis focuses on vehicular ad hoc networks. The thesis designs and evaluates through simulations a point-to-point transport protocol for vehicular ad hoc networks and an algorithm to facilitate the reliable and efficient distribution of information in a geographically scoped target area. Finally, the thesis evaluates the impact of wireless radio fluctuations on the performance of an Ad Hoc Network. Measurements quantify the wireless radio fluctuations. Based on these results, the thesis develops a simple but realistic radio model that evaluates by means of simulations the impact on the performance of an ad hoc network. As a result, the work provides guidelines for future ad hoc protocol design

A hybrid network/host mobility management scheme for next generation networks

Includes bibliographical references.The author proposes a hybrid network/host interworking scheme to allow the MN to transition smoothly between different access networks supporting two distinct mobility approaches

Distributed mobility management solutions for next mobile network architectures

The architecture of current operator infrastructures is being challenged by the non-stopping growing demand of data hungry services appearing every day. While currently deployed operator networks have been able to cope with traffic demands so far, the architectures for the 5th generation of mobile networks (5G) are expected to support unprecedented traffic loads while decreasing costs associated to the network deployment and operations. Distributed Mobility Management (DMM) helps going into this direction, by flattening the network, hence improving its scalability, and enabling local access to the Internet and other communication services, like mobile-edge clouds. Initial proposals have been based on extending existing IP mobility protocols, such as Mobile IPv6 and Proxy Mobile IPv6, but these need to further evolve to comply with the requirements of future networks, which include, among others, higher flexibility. Software Defined Networking (SDN) appears as a powerful tool for operators looking forward to increased flexibility and reduced costs. In this article, we first propose a Proxy Mobile IPv6 based DMM solution which serves as a baseline for exploring the evolution of DMM towards SDN, including the identification of DMM design principles and challenges. Based on this investigation, we propose a SDN-based DMM solution which is evaluated against our baseline from analytic and experimental viewpoints.This work has been funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under the grant agreement no. 671598 “5GCrosshaul: the 5G integrated fronthaul/backhaul”

Prediction assisted fast handovers for seamless IP mobility

Word processed copy.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-98).This research investigates the techniques used to improve the standard Mobile IP handover process and provide proactivity in network mobility management. Numerous fast handover proposals in the literature have recently adopted a cross-layer approach to enhance movement detection functionality and make terminal mobility more seamless. Such fast handover protocols are dependent on an anticipated link-layer trigger or pre-trigger to perform pre-handover service establishment operations. This research identifies the practical difficulties involved in implementing this type of trigger and proposes an alternative solution that integrates the concept of mobility prediction into a reactive fast handover scheme

Wireless Multi Hop Access Networks and Protocols

As more and more applications and services in our society now depend on the Internet, it is important that dynamically deployed wireless multi hop networks are able to gain access to the Internet and other infrastructure networks and services. This thesis proposes and evaluates solutions for providing multi hop Internet Access. It investigates how ad hoc networks can be combined with wireless and mesh networks in order to create wireless multi hop access networks. When several access points to the Internet are available, and the mobile node roams to a new access point, the node has to make a decision when and how to change its point of attachment. The thesis describes how to consider the rapid fluctuations of the wireless medium, how to handle the fact that other nodes on the path to the access point are also mobile which results in frequent link and route breaks, and the impact the change of attachment has on already existing connections. Medium access and routing protocols have been developed that consider both the long term and the short term variations of a mobile wireless network. The long term variations consider the fact that as nodes are mobile, links will frequently break and new links appear and thus the network topology map is constantly redrawn. The short term variations consider the rapid fluctuations of the wireless channel caused by mobility and multi path propagation deviations. In order to achieve diversity forwarding, protocols are presented which consider the network topology and the state of the wireless channel when decisions about forwarding need to be made. The medium access protocols are able to perform multi dimensional fast link adaptation on a per packet level with forwarding considerations. This i ncludes power, rate, code and channel adaptation. This will enable the type of performance improvements that are of significant importance for the success of multi hop wireless networks