Mobile Station Movement Direction Prediction (MMDP) Based Handover Scanning for Mobile WiMAX System

Mobile WiMAX is a broadband technology that is capable of delivering triple play services (voice, data, and video). However, mobility in mobile WiMAX system is still an issue when the mobile station (MS) moves and its connection is handed over between base stations (BSs). In the handover process, scanning is one of the required phases to find the target BS. During the handover scanning process, the MS must synchronize with all the advertised neighbour BSs (nBSs) to select the best BS candidate for the incoming handover action. Without terminating the connection between the SBS and MS, the SBS will schedule the scanning intervals and sleep-intervals (also called interleaving interval) to MS for the handover scanning. However, during the scanning interval period, all the coming transmissions will be paused. Therefore, the redundant or unnecessary scanning of neighbouring BS cause delay and MAC overhead which may affect real-time applications. In this paper, the MS movement direction prediction (MMDP) based handover scanning scheme is introduced to overcome the mobile WiMAX handover scanning issue. It based on dividing the BS coverage area is into zones and sectors. According to the signal quality; there are three zones, no handover (No-HO), low handover (Low-HO) and high handover (High-HO) zones respectively and six sectors. In this scheme, only two BSs can become candidates; the two that the MS moves toward them will be chosen as the candidate for the handover scanning purpose. Hence, the handover scanning process repetition will be reduced with these two shortlisted BS candidates instead of scanning all nBSs. Thus, MMDP will reduce scanning delay and the number of exchange messages during the handover scanning comparing to the conventional scanning scheme. Although, the MMDP may need an extra computational time, the prediction and scanning process will be finished before the MS reach the High-HO zone, which mean the end-user’s running application will be affected. Simulation results show that the proposed MMDP scheme reduces the total handover scanning delay and scanning interval duration by 25 and 50 % respectively. Also, the size of scanning message is reduced, which leads to reduced signalling overhead.     

Validation of an improved location-based handover algorithm using GSM measurement data

When a mobile station moves, the path loss and shadow fading contribute to the large-scale variation in the received signal strength. The variation of signal strength caused by shadow fadings is a random process, and handover decision mechanisms based on measurements of signal strength induce the "ping-pong effect." This paper proposes an improved handover algorithm, based on the estimates of location and velocity of the mobile station, to suppress the ping-pong effect in cellular systems. A practical approach based on GSM measurement data is used to estimate the location and velocity of mobile station to identify the correlation among shadowing components. The impact of location errors on handover performance was examined, and the proposed handover algorithm was applied to a real GSM system in urban Taipei city. The results indicate that the number of unnecessary handover can be reduced 18-26 percent by the proposed approach compared to the conventional method, while the signal outage probability remains similar. Besides, the computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is low, and the algorithm does not use a database or lookup table.     

基于运动趋势的模糊逻辑垂直切换算法

随着无线异构网络的融合,移动性管理技术成为其关键问题,而切换管理又是移动性管理的重要部分。针对垂直切换管理提出了一种基于运动趋势的模糊逻辑垂直切换算法。算法分为预判定、模糊逻辑控制及切换判决3个过程。首先,在预判定阶段根据MN的运动趋势及接收信号强度滤除掉不适宜接入WLAN的网络信息,从而有效减少不必要的数据量和系统开销;其次,将接收信号强度、网络的可用带宽和网络开销送入模糊逻辑控制器,通过参数的归一量化最终得到网络综合性能值(VCPN);最后,通过综合考虑VCPN和驻留时间来进行网络切换判决。仿真结果显示,该算法能够有针对性地做出切换判决,有效消除乒乓效应,提高网络切换性能。     

移动WiMAX中结合关联级别2且利用R6信令交互进行参数协商的硬切换机制

移动WtMAX技术具有传输距离远、接入速度高、支持移动性等特点,该系统网络的切换是支持移动性的关键技术,如果切换时延越大,会造成MS在越长的时间内无法与服务BS交互媒体面数据,从而使网络服务质量大幅下降。本文针对移动WiMAX现有切换机制的时延进行了分析,发现其切换时延极大的影响了WiMAX的服务质量,因此本文在分析了约束切换时延优化的主要因素上提出一种新的结合关联2且利用R6信令进行参数协商的硬切换机制,经过模拟测试和性能分析得出该机制可以有效减小硬切换时延,能够满足移动WiMAX较高服务质量的要求。     

Research on dynamic handover decision algorithm based on fuzzy logic control in mobile FSO networks

Because of multiple advantages such as high bandwidth, high security, and flexible networking, the free space optical communication (FSO) has attracted more and more attention. However, the narrow beam of laser and the constrained access degree of optical node limit the development of mobile FSO networks, especially in the aspect of handover. In this paper, we propose a fuzzy logic control-based handover decision (FLC-HD) algorithm to ensure real-time and reliable communication. First, according to the predictive position and the motion information of mobile nodes obtained by the error correction extend Kalman filter algorithm, we obtain the received signal strength and the relative motion angles at next transmission. Second, we put forward the concept of threshold to ensure the completion of handover operations before the current link breaking. Third, the fuzzy logic control method is designed to select the optimal access point (AP) with three critical parameters, i.e., the received signal strength, the relative motion angles, and the access degrees of nodes. Simulation results show that the FLC-HD algorithm can improve the handover efficiency and relieve the ping-pong effect in mobile FSO networks.

     

移动WiMAX系统中的切换优化方案分析

IEEE和WiMAX论坛相继针对移动WiMAX系统定义了标准的切换机制.为实现全移动的目标,应尽量减少移动WiMAX系统的切换时延,同时保证切换过程中数据的完整性.本文简单介绍了WiMAX系统基本原理和移动性管理机制,详细分析了在移动WiMAX系统中如何优化切换时延,同时提出了一种合理的保证数据完整性的切换方案.     

A Fast Authentication Scheme for WiMAX–WLAN Vertical Handover

In view that authentication has made a significant determinant in handover delay, this paper presents a fast authentication mechanism for mobile stations roaming within a WiMAX–WLAN interconnected environment. Incorporating a key reuse design that prevents repeated transactions at a remote server, our mechanism distributes security contexts ahead of handover to a local trusted key holder which manages several sites. A target site, upon receiving a mobile station, retrieves the contexts locally for authentication purpose and thus completes handover efficiently. While employing a target prediction algorithm as an option, our mechanism distributes the contexts to target candidates as dictated, which further improves handover performance if target prediction hits and maintains its advantage even in a miss. In addition, the handover optimization design specified in WiMAX is extended to support WiFi-to-WiMAX handovers. We reason that the proposed mechanism does not compromise the system in any sense as well. Analytical and simulation results show that, despite key pre-distribution misses, our mechanism leads to marked improvement over counterpart schemes in terms of handover delay and packet loss, meeting delay-sensitive application requirements.     

Enhancing the performance of secured handover protocols in UMTS-WiMAX interworking

Interworking UMTS and WiMAX networks offers global roaming and cost effective broadband wireless Internet access. Designing efficient Intra and Inter WiMAX handovers in the interworking architecture is a challenging problem. Handovers must be instantaneous and secure at the same time. We attempt to solve this problem by designing Intra and Inter WiMAX handover protocols which are capable of operating in the UMTS-WiMAX interworking architecture and perform mutual pre-authentication between the mobile station and the target network prior to handover. Due to the pre-authentication procedure, our proposed handover protocols outperform standard handover protocols by dispatching fewer handover signaling messages, experiencing less handover delay and preserving computation resources of critical nodes in the interworking architecture. Furthermore, our proposed handover protocols meet essential security requirements and defend against common attacks affecting handover protocols.     

异构无线网络中基于模糊逻辑的分级垂直切换算法

在异构无线网络中,针对综合考虑网络端和用户端参数的垂直切换算法,参数权重难以确定,同时基于模糊逻辑的垂直切换算法存在复杂度高的问题,该文提出一种基于模糊逻辑的分级垂直切换算法。首先,将接收信号强度(RSS)、带宽、时延输入到1级模糊逻辑系统,结合规则自适应匹配,推理出QoS模糊值,并通过QoS模糊值对网络进行初步筛选得到候选网络集;然后通过触发机制触发2级模糊逻辑系统,并将候选网络的QoS模糊值、网络负载率、用户接入费用输入2级模糊逻辑系统,同时结合规则自适应匹配,得到输出判决值,从而选择最佳接入网络。最后,实验结果表明,该算法能保证网络性能的同时,降低系统的时间开销。     

Achieving Faster Handovers in Mobile WiMAX Networks

WiMAX is a wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) specified by IEEE 802.16. It provides the broadband wireless access for mobile devices. In such a system, to enable the mobility, the handover is supported to maintain the connectivity of the mobile station (MS) when it moves from the coverage of the serving base station (BS) to the coverage of a neighbor BS. In the handover process, scanning is required to find a suitable target BS, and network re-entry is needed to establish the new connection. However, in the standard handover process, a long latency to data transmissions is caused resulting in the serious interruption to ongoing services. In this paper, an improved handover scheme is proposed to reduce the latency introduced in the handover process by shortening the scanning and enhancing the network re-entry. The proposed scanning strategy reduces the latency by reducing the number of neighbor BSs to be scanned through estimating the rough location of the MS. The enhanced network re-entry reduces the delay by updating transport connection identifiers (CIDs) early to allow the fast resumption of active applications. Simulations were conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed handover scheme. The results show that the proposed handover scheme reduces the data transmission latency during handover significantly.     

New efficient cross‐layer and multihoming mechanisms at layer 2 for inter‐radio access technology handover between UMTS and WiMAX

Next generation mobile networks will provide seamless mobility between existing cellular systems and other wireless access technologies. To realize a seamless vertical handover (inter‐radio access technology handover) among these different access technologies, a multi‐interfaced mobile station (i.e., multihomed) is a good approach to provide better handover performance in terms of packet loss rate and handover latency. In this article, we propose a novel layer 2 multihoming approach for inter‐radio access technology handover between Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) in both integrated and tight coupling architectures. This layer 2 multihoming approach has the ability of enabling either soft handover or make‐before‐break handover to adapt to mobility scenarios for the sake of a lossless and short latency handover procedure. Our simulation results show that, in case of handover from UMTS to WiMAX for transmission control protocol (TCP) traffics, the layer 2 multihoming approach can achieve a lossless and zero latency handover procedure by enabling soft handover. In case of handover from WiMAX to UMTS, because of the fact that the performance gain of soft handover is more affected by the differences of bandwidth and transmission delay between these wireless links, the make‐before‐break handover is preferred to achieve lossless and short latency handover procedure. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fast Intra-Network and Cross-Layer Handover (FINCH) for WiMAX and Mobile Internet

To support fast and efficient handovers in mobile WiMAX, we propose Fast Intra-Network and Cross-layer Handover (FINCH) for intradomain (intra-CSN) mobility management. FINCH is a complementary protocol to Mobile IP (MIP), which deals with interdomain (inter-CSN) mobility management in mobile WiMAX. FINCH can reduce not only the handover latency but also the end-to-end latency for MIP. Paging extension for FINCH is also proposed to enhance the energy efficiency. The proposed FINCH is especially suitable for real-time services in frequent handover environment, which is important for future mobile WiMAX networks. In addition, FINCH is a generic protocol for other IEEE 802-series standards. This is especially beneficial for the integration of heterogeneous networks, for instance, the integration of WiMAX and WiFi networks. Both mathematical analysis and simulation are developed to analyze and compare the performance of FINCH with other protocols. The results show that FINCH can support fast and efficient link layer and intradomain handovers. The numerical results can also be used to select proper network configurations.     

Analysis of IPv6 handovers in IEEE 802.16 environment

The second generation of WiMAX solutions, based on IEEE 802.16-2005 standard, offers limited mobility support. Unfortunately, after quickly changing the point of attachment on the WiMAX data link layer (DLL), very slow and inefficient IPv6 reconfiguration takes place. Delays introduced by automatic configuration (DHCPv6 and IPv6 protocols) and Mobile IPv6 can easily diminish or even render useless all benefits gained using the efficient handover performed on DLL. As handover is a crucial process in mobile cellular environments, reasons behind delays introduced by IPv6 layer mechanisms have to be analyzed and appropriate countermeasures applied. In order to analyse influence of different factors on the handover delay a simulation environment modelling the full handover procedure in a WiMAX environment has been developed. It allows simulation and analysis of various mobility related issues, offering support for multiple base stations with groups of subscribers, both fixed and mobile, with various mobility models. Also support for tight integration with higher layers (IPv6, DHCPv6, and Mobile IPv6) is fully implemented. All stages of full IPv6 handover in IEEE 802.16 environment, focusing on major reasons of reconfiguration delays are described. The paper presents components, functional requirements and architecture of the simulation environment, together with example simulation results. The obtained results clearly show that most significant delays are caused by the IPv6 layer. The areas of improvement in several autoconfiguration mechanisms are identified. Proposals include novel use of DHCPv6 relays for remote configuration, solving DAD delays, limiting Binding Update procedure in Mobile IPv6, and configuring routing through DHCPv6 communication. A universal metric for assessing impact of every stage on handover efficiency is also defined. Several proposed improvements to the IPv6 handover process are evaluated. Discussion regarding possible generalization of best improvement proposals and remarks on further research areas conclude this paper.     

Group scanning scheme for fast target channel decision in seamless handover of wireless networks

In wireless networks, when a mobile roaming station decides to initiate a handover, it should scan multiple channels operated by neighboring base stations (BSs) (or access points (APs)) in order to find an appropriate target base station before the actual handover. In some wireless networks, the active base station is able to provide a list of channels operated by neighboring base stations. However, some of these candidate channels may not be accessible to the mobile station (MS); nonetheless, the MS scans the candidate channels consecutively. For this reason, it may take a relatively long time for the MS to select an adequate target base station channel. This process can degrade the quality of service (QoS) during handovers. To shorten the scanning latency efficiently, in this paper we propose a cooperative channel scanning method whereby groups of MSs scan candidate channels using a dispersive schedule. They then share the scanning results amongst themselves, which results in a fast handover channel decision. To apply the proposed method to a real network environment, we present a group scanning architecture and detailed application scenarios appropriate for IEEE 802.16e worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX) networks. Numerical analyses and simulation results show that our proposed method achieves a shorter target channel scanning latency. Our method is thus more efficient in terms of scanning time and channel selection accuracy. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A fast seamless handover scheme and its CDT optimization for ping-pong type of movement

In mobile IPv6 networks, the ping-pong type of movement brings about frequent handovers and thus increases signaling burden. This letter proposes a fast seamless handover scheme where the access router keeps the mobile node＇s old reservation till the offline Count Down Timer （CDT） expires in order to reduce handover signaling and delay while the mobile node returns in a very short period of time. Based upon a poisson mobility model, an simple expression for CDT optimization is given out for the scheme to achieve the best cost performance of resource reservation.     

Seamless integration of mobile WiMAX in 3GPP networks

As the wireless industry makes its way to the next generation of mobile systems, it is important to engineer solutions that enable seamless integration of emerging 4G access technologies within the currently deployed and/or evolved 2G/3G infrastructures. In this article we address a specific case of such a seamless integration, that of mobile WiMAX in evolved 3GPP networks. In this context we investigate the architecture and the key procedures that enable this integration, and we also introduce a novel handover mechanism that enables seamless mobility between mobile WiMAX and legacy 3GPP access, such as UTRAN or GERAN. The core characteristic of this novel handover mechanism is that mobile terminals do not need to support simultaneous transmission on both WiMAX and 3GPP accesses; therefore, it mitigates the RF coexistence issues that exist otherwise and improves handover performance. In addition, we provide a brief overview of mobile WiMAX and the evolved 3GPP network technologies, and we set the appropriate background material before presenting our proposed handover mechanism. Our main conclusion is that integrating mobile WiMAX in evolved 3GPP networks is a compelling approach for providing wireless broadband services, and mobility across WiMAX and 3GPP access can become seamless and efficient with no need for mobile terminals to support simultaneous transmission on both types of access.     

WiMAX移动性的改进与增强

基于IEEE 802.16协议族的WiMAX网络将按照固定、游牧、移动的趋势发展,其中802.16e协议是面向全面移动性的。分析了802.16e协议空中接口媒体接入控制层(MAC)在切换方面的改进和物理层(PHY)针对移动性的改进并进行参数选择。针对802.16e网络架构对移动场景支持的不足,提出一种新的适合移动性的WiMAX网络增强型体系架构。     

UPTIME: an IMS-based mobility framework for next generation mobile networks

Seamless inter-technology mobility is one of the fundamental requirements of next generation mobile networks. For seamless mobility, handover delay and packet loss should be minimized. However, existing solutions suffer from a number of shortcomings in satisfying these requirements: first, handover preparation schemes fail to minimize the handover delay as much as possible. Second, minimizing packet loss which is usually using soft handover (SHO) schemes are excessively wasteful of scarce resources. In this paper, we propose the uninterrupted proactive connection transfer for IMS mobility enhancement (UPTIME) mobility framework which achieves seamless mobility while minimizing excessive power and radio resource consumption. UPTIME incorporates two mechanisms; a proactive handover preparation method and an optimized SHO technique for handover execution. We demonstrate the benefits of the proposed framework through both analysis and simulation. Our simulation results for typical LTE/WiMAX handovers show that the handover preparation delay can be reduced by 70 %, and good packet loss performance can be achieved whilst saving 43 % of radio resources and 48 % of battery power.     

数字网络设备基于优先级消息的快速切换方法

开发了一种数字网络设备传输的中继网络中基于与信道质量信息相关的优先级消息的快速切换方法。在固定、游牧、移动中继站中,因现有网络中添加/删除中继站、通过扫描、环境监听和Ranging在现有通信路径上添加/移除中继站、新中继站登录/重新登录时,中继站及附属于中继站的所有终端完成快速切换,同时确保了快速切换后的通信路径的信道质量,减小了原有切换中中继站及附属于这一中继站的所有终端都要进行扫描、环境监听和Ranging等切换程序时的时延及复杂性。     

WiMAX网络的自适应切换算法

宽带无线通信由于载频的不断提高使得覆盖网络的半径越来越小,切换将变的更加频繁。针对不同移动用户,提出了一种基于移动速度的自适应切换算法,在切换过程中目标基站通过自适应的调整切换的延时时间来提高切换质量,降低了切换的掉话率。仿真表明,该策略可以有效降低切换掉话率,得到了一个比较完善的切换机制,可广泛用于将来宽带无线通信融合网络的切换中。