Performance of End-to-End Mobility Management in Satellite IP Networks

Abstract — IETF has developed Mobile IP to support mobility of IP hosts at the network layer. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has implemented Mobile IP to handle handovers in space networks. Due to a number of limitations of Mobile IP, such as high handover latency, packet loss rate, and conflict with existing network security solutions, a new IPdiversity based mobility management scheme, called SIGMA, has been developed through collaborative efforts of NASA and University of Oklahoma. In this paper, we illustrate the performance of SIGMA for managing handovers in space networks. We show by simulation that SIGMA extends network connectivity from space to ground, and ensures smooth handover between spacecrafts for different space network scenarios. I