Locally Distributed Handover Decision Making for Seamless Connectivity in Multihomed Moving Networks

Abstract

Providing seamless connectivity emerges nowadays as a key topic in internet mobility management. NEMO BS Protocol was recently proposed by IETF for managing mobility of moving networks. The protocol is based on hard handover (Brake-Before-Make). The results of NEMO handover analyzes in literature prove that, the support of mobility such as it is defined, does not make it possible to ensure seamless connectivity. To overcome limitations of NEMO BS protocol, several optimizations were proposed. The solutions suggested are based on the optimization of each component of the handover using cross-layer design, network assistance and multihoming. Unfortunately, these optimizations remain insufficient to meet the needs for the applications to critical performance such as handover delay and packet loss. This paper proposes an intelligent support to manage mobility in a locally distributed manner for a multihomed moving network. The task is distributed between mobile routers who cooperatively perform the decision making and execution of the handover based on information gathered by MIH services. NS2 Simulations experiments were investigated to validate the proposed model. The results show that the solution provides excellent performance meeting the needs of time-sensitive applications.