Handoff Cost Research Articles

Handoff Control and Resource Allocation for RAN Slicing in IoT Based on DTN: An Improved Algorithm Based on Actor–Critic Framework

As a three-layer association of Internet of things equipment (IoTE) -network slicing (NS) -base station (BS) in radio access network (RAN) slicing, handoff control and resource allocation has become an important but complicated issue. In addition, the centralized controller has a difficult grasping the network situation in real time. In view of this, the problem of handoff control in the RAN slicing are investigated in the digital twin network (DTN), with the goal of maximizing the long-term utility about user satisfaction and handoff cost. Then an improved algorithm based on actor-critic framework is suggested, which is called HCRA. Specifically, the actor component contains neural networks for Handoff Control and an optimizer for Resource Allocation, and then the critic component evaluates the handoff and resource allocation actions of the actor component to guide the optimization of actions in the actor component. The simulation results show that HCRA can obtain better performance than benchmark algorithms.

Beam Management in Ultra-Dense mmWave Network via Federated Reinforcement Learning: An Intelligent and Secure Approach

Deploying ultra-dense networks that operate on millimeter wave (mmWave) band is a promising way to address the tremendous growth on mobile data traffic. However, one key challenge of ultra-dense mmWave network (UDmmN) is beam management due to the high propagation delay, limited beam coverage as well as numerous beams and users. In this paper, a novel systematic beam control scheme is presented to tackle the beam management problem which is difficult due to the nonconvex objective function. We employ double deep Q-network (DDQN) under a federated learning (FL) framework to address the above optimization problem, and thereby fulfilling adaptive and intelligent beam management in UDmmN. In the proposed beam management scheme based on FL (BMFL), the non-rawdata aggregation can theoretically protect user privacy while reducing handoff cost. Moreover, we propose to adopt a data cleaning technique in the local model training for BMFL, with the aim to further strengthen the privacy protection of users while improving the learning convergence speed. Simulation results demonstrate the performance gain of our proposed scheme.

Device Association for RAN Slicing Based on Hybrid Federated Deep Reinforcement Learning

Network slicing (NS) has been widely identified as a key architectural technology for 5G-and-beyond systems by supporting divergent requirements in a sustainable way. In radio access network (RAN) slicing, due to the device-base station (BS)-NS three layer association relationship, device association (including access control and handoff management) becomes an essential yet challenging issue. With the increasing concerns on stringent data security and device privacy, exploiting local resources to solve device association problem while enforcing data security and device privacy becomes attractive. Fortunately, recently emerging federated learning (FL), a distributed learning paradigm with data protection, provides an effective tool to address this type of issues in mobile networks. In this paper, we propose an efficient device association scheme for RAN slicing by exploiting a hybrid FL reinforcement learning (HDRL) framework, with the aim to improve network throughput while reducing handoff cost. In our proposed framework, individual smart devices train a local machine learning model based on local data and then send the model features to the serving BS/encrypted party for aggregation, so as to efficiently reduce bandwidth consumption for learning while enforcing data privacy. Specifically, we use deep reinforcement learning to train the local model on smart devices under a hybrid FL framework, where horizontal FL is employed for parameter aggregation on BS, while vertical FL is employed for NS/BS pair selection aggregation on the encrypted party. Numerical results show that the proposed HDRL scheme can achieve significant performance gain in terms of network throughput and communication efficiency in comparison with some state-of-the-art solutions.

MROM Scheme to Improve Handoff Performance in Mobile Networks

Mobile Router (MR) mobility supported by Network Mobility Basic Support Protocol (NEMO BS) is a Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) extension that supports Host Mobility. Proposed Multihoming and Route Optimization for MANEMO (MROM) scheme is designed to provide Route Optimization (RO) and Multihomed in NEMO architectures. This paper proposes two novel schemes; MANEMO routing scheme and Multihoming-based scheme. These are to provide support for next generation networks. The proposed MROM scheme differs from other schemes for NEMO environment because it considers the requirements of more application flows parameters as packet lost delivery, handoff delay as well as throughput). Another difference is that not only the network infrastructure can begin the functionality of flow routing, but also an Edge Mobile Router (EMR) can do this flow for routing. Moreover, it utilizes the state of the art and presently active access network to perform the separation of each flow in mobile network. Thus, proposed MROM exhibits multihoming features and improves handoff performance by initiating flow-based fast registration process in NEMO environment. A handoff method is proposed with enhanced functionalities of the Local Mobility Anchors (LMA), Mobile Routers (MRs) and signaling messages with a view to achieve continuous connectivity through handoff in NEMO. Both analytical and simulation approaches are used. Analytical evaluation is carried out to analyze packet delivery lost and handoff delay of our proposed scheme. It was also shown that cost of signaling messages and packet delivery are contributing to total handoff cost. At the simulation part, network simulator 3 (NS 3) has been used as the tool to get performance metrics that have been considered like packet delivery ratio, handoff delay, and packet loss. Our proposed scheme (MROM) has been benchmarking to the standard NEMO BS Protocol and P-NEMO. In this paper, we discuss proposed MROM for next generation networks, providing detailed analysis with a numerical model, proposed MROM, by maximizing the handoff performance, has been justified to have better mobility support than the ordinary NEMO BS Protocol and PNEMO.

Design and Evaluation of a Multihoming-Based Mobility Management Scheme to Support Inter Technology Handoff in PNEMO

Handoff management is an indispensable component in supporting network mobility. The handoff situation raises while the Mobile Router (MR) or Mobile Node (MN) crosses the different wireless communication access technologies. At the time of inter technology handoff the multiple interface based MR can accomplish multihoming features such as enhanced availability, traffic load balancing with seamless flow distribution. These multihoming topographies greatly responsible reducing network delays during inter technology handoff. This article proposes a multihoming based Mobility management in Proxy NEMO (MM-PNEMO) scheme that considers benefits of using multiple interfaces. To support the proposed scheme design a numerical framework is developed that will be used to assess the performance of the proposed MM-PNEMO scheme. The performance is evaluated in the state-of-art numerical simulation approach focusing the key success metrics of signalling cost and packet delivery cost, that eventually scaling the total handoff cost. The numerical simulation result shows that the proposed MM-PENMO delightedly reduces the average handoff cost to 60% compared to existing NEMO Basic support protocol (NEMO-BSP) and PNEMO.

Fuzzy-Neural based Cost Effective Handover Prediction Technique for 5G-IoT networks

Most of the existing works related to handover prediction in 5G networks, depends on huge mobility patterns collected over several periods of time, which will be tedious and complex to classify and analyze these patterns to predict the future locations of mobile users. Hence the main objective is to design a HO prediction technique which accurately predicts the next cell location with least amount of mobility history or patterns. In this paper, we design handoff prediction and target network selection scheme for 5G-IoT networks. For VHO triggering condition, Multi-layer Feed Forward Network (MFNN) is applied which will predict the user mobility based on distance, RSS, mobile speed and direction parameters. For target cell selection, Fuzzy decision model is applied based on the network level metrics such as traffic load, handover latency, battery power and user level metrics such as security and cost. The proposed approach will be implemented in NS3 and the performance is measured in terms of network throughput, handoff delay, handoff cost and prediction accuracy.

Cells to Switches Assignment in Cellular Mobile Networks Using Metaheuristics

ABSTRACTCabling, handoff, and switching costs play pivotal roles in the design and development of cellular mobile networks. The assignment pattern consisting of which cell is to be connected to which switch can have a significant impact on the individual cost. In the presence of the limitation on the number of cells that can be assigned to a switch, the problem of the cell to switch assignment (CSA) becomes nondeterministic polynomial time hard to solve with all effective solutions being based on metaheuristic optimization algorithms (MOA) approach. This article applies three recently evolved MOA, namely, flower pollination algorithm (FPA), hunting search (HuS), and wolf search algorithm (WSA) for solving CSA problem. Comprehensive computational experiments conducted to collate the performance of the three algorithms indicate that FPA is superior to both HuS and WSA with respect to attaining the global best value and faster convergence with desired CSA.

A multi-hop moving zone (MMZ) clustering scheme based on cellular-V2X

A clustering scheme based on pure V2V communications has two prominent issues i.e. broadcast storm and network disconnection. The application of the fifth generation (5G) technology to vehicular networks is an optimal choice due to its wide coverage and low latency features. In this paper, a Multi-hop Moving Zone (MMZ) clustering scheme is proposed by combining IEEE 802.11p with the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) 5G cellular technology. In MMZ, vehicles are clustered up-to three hops using V2V communications based on IEEE 802.11p aiming to reduce excessive cellular hand-off cost. While the zonal heads (ZHs) i.e. cluster heads (CHs) are selected by cellular-V2X (C-V2X) on the basis of multi-metrics i.e. relative speed, distance and link life time (LLT). The main goal of MMZ is to form stable clusters achieving high packet delivery and low latency. The simulation results using ns3 show that, 5G wide range technology significantly improves the stability of MMZ in term of ZH duration and change rate. The average Data Packet Delivery Ratio (DPDR) and E2E latency are also improved as compared to the existing clustering schemes.

Use of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) for Post-Deployment Replanning of UMTS Networks

Inherent dynamism in user movement demands for post-deployment tuning of UMTS networks to minimize the total cost of ownership (TCO). Conventionally, UMTS operators so far have considered many-to-one mapping of RNCs to MSCs. However, such single-homed networks do not remain cost-effective over the passage of time, typically when subscribers later on begin to show specific mobility patterns such as diurnal movement. This necessitates topological extension of the network in terms of dual-homing of some selected RNCs to two MSCs simultaneously via direct fibre links, resulting in a many-to-two mapping in parts of the network. The aim of such selective dual-homing is to reduce handoff cost maximally at the expense of minimal increase in link cost, thereby reducing the TCO optimally. In this article, the authors have formulated the scenario as an integer linear programming problem, converted it into a state space search and then solved it using Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) technique. Compared to Simulated Annealing (SA) and Tabu Search (TS), ACO exhibits 10% to 15% improvement in solution quality.

Optimizing Cluster Size Through Handoff Analysis in User-Centric Cooperative Wireless Networks

User-centric base station (BS) cooperation has been regarded as an effective solution for improving network coverage and throughput in next-generation wireless systems. However, it also introduces more complicated handoff patterns, which may potentially degrade user performance. In this paper, we aim to theoretically quantify the tradeoff between handoff cost and data rate. Two user-centric clustering modes are investigated: number-based cooperation (NBC), which is easier to implement, and distance-based cooperation (DBC), which gives higher data rate performance. In the NBC mode, a user is served by its $K$ closest BSs, while in the DBC mode, it is served by all BSs within a given distance. However, due to the randomness of network topology, it is a challenging task to track handoffs and to characterize data rates. To address this issue, we propose a stochastic geometric analysis framework on user mobility, to derive a theoretical expression for the handoff rate experienced by an active user with arbitrary movement trajectory. Then, we characterize the average downlink user data rate under a common non-coherent joint-transmission scheme, which is used to illustrate the tradeoff between handoff rate and data rate in optimizing the cooperative cluster size. We conclude that in the NBC (resp. DBC) mode, the optimal cluster size is asymptotically inversely (resp. inversely) proportional to the square of the user speed and asymptotically inversely (resp. inversely) proportional to the BS intensity. Finally, computer simulation is conducted to validate the correctness and usefulness of our analysis.

An investigation on metaheuristic techniques for solving cell to switch assignment problem

The assignment of cells to switches in a Personal Communication Services Network (PCSN) is a Non-Deterministic Polynomial Time (NP) hard problem with exponential complexity and is among the hardest combinatorial optimisation problems of great practical importance in wireless communication systems. The objective is to assign cells to switches in an optimal manner, such that the cost comprising the sum of hand-off, cabling and switching cost is minimised with reasonable accuracy in an acceptable time scale, while obeying the constraints that each cell must be assigned to exactly one switch and total load of all the cells which are assigned to a switch is below the capacity of the switch. The aim of this article is to experimentally investigate the performance of three recent metaheuristic algorithms namely Bat Algorithm (BA), Firefly Algorithm (FA) and Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA) for solving the Cell to Switch Assignment (CSA) problem.

An Equivalent Analysis for Handoff Probability in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

In heterogeneous cellular network (HCN), mobile users may travel across the coverage of different base stations (BSs). Handoff procedures need to be performed to maintain seamless connectivity. Since BSs in different tiers have distinct setting about transmission power and range extension bias, analysis for the network performance becomes complicated, particularly for the vertical handoff as an important functionality in HCN. To facilitate performance analysis, this letter proposes a method built on the equivalence between vertical handoff and horizontal handoff events. With the established equivalence, both types of handoff probabilities can be obtained in a single analytical framework. We also derive the coverage probability of mobile users by including the handoff cost in the analysis and obtain a compact expression. Numerical results are presented to validate the analysis accuracy and provide insights to the performance of HCN in supporting mobility.

Decentralized Blind Spectrum Selection in Cognitive Radio Networks Considering Handoff Cost

Due to the spectrum varying nature of cognitive radio networks, secondary users are required to perform spectrum handoffs when the spectrum is occupied by primary users, which will lead to a handoff delay. In this paper, based on the multi-armed bandit framework of medium access in decentralized cognitive radio networks, we investigate blind spectrum selection problem of secondary users whose sensing ability of cognitive radio is limited and the channel statistics are a priori unknown, taking the handoff delay as a fixed handoff cost into consideration. In this scenario, secondary users have to make the choice of either staying foregoing spectrum with low availability or handing off to another spectrum with higher availability. We model the problem and investigate the performance of three representative policies, i.e., ρPRE, SL(K), kth-UCB1. The simulation results show that, despite the inclusion of the fixed handoff cost, these policies achieve the same asymptotic performance as that without handoff cost. Moreover, through comparison of these policies, we found the kth-UCB1 policy has better overall performance.

Implementation of enhanced forward pointer-based mobility management scheme for handling internet and intranet traffic in wireless mesh network

To implement WMN, IEEE 802.11s has been developed. The routing protocol for selecting a path between two mesh stations in IEEE 802.11s is hybrid wireless mesh protocol (HWMP). But mobility of external stations has not been considered in IEEE 802.11s. For handling movement of clients, many mobility management schemes have been proposed. Some of such schemes are: ANT, Mesh Mobility Management (M $$^{3})$$ , Infrastructure Mesh (iMesh), SMesh, MEsh networks with MObility management (MEMO), Wireless mesh Mobility Management (WMM), Static Anchor Scheme, Dynamic Anchor Scheme, LMMesh, Session-to-Mobility-Ratio based Scheme and Forward Pointer-Based Mobility Management Scheme (FPBR). But none of the schemes except FPBR have been integrated with IEEE 802.11s for providing mobility support to the external stations. FPBR has been proposed to enhance IEEE 802.11s for providing mobility support to external stations, but it can support internet traffic only. In WMN both internet and intranet traffic to and from the external station is important. In this paper, an improved version of FPBR named Enhanced FPBR (EFPBR) Scheme has been introduced to handle both internet and intranet traffic. Both EFPBR and HWMP have been numerically analyzed. HWMP and EFPBR schemes are simulated and the performances are compared. From the performance comparison, it can be observed that EFPBR performs better than that of IEEE 802.11s concerning throughput, end-to-end delay, routing overhead and average handoff cost. The number of route management packets transferred per handoff measured from numerical analysis and simulation has also been compared.

PMNDN: Proxy Based Mobility Support Approach in Mobile NDN Environment

In this paper, we study the source mobility problem that exists in the current named data networking (NDN) architecture and propose a proxy-based mobility support approach named PMNDN to overcome the problem. PMNDN proposes using a proxy to efficiently manage source mobility. Besides, functionalities of the NDN access routers are extended to track the mobility status of a source and signal Proxy about a handoff event. With this design, a mobile source does not need to participate in handoff signaling which reduces the consumption of limited wireless bandwidth. PMNDN also features an ID that is structurally similar to the content name so that routing scalability of NDN architecture is maintained and addressing efficiency of Interest packets is improved. We illustrate the performance advantages of our proposed solution by comparing the handoff performance of the mobility support approaches with that in NDN architecture and current Internet architecture via analytical and simulation investigation. We show that PMNDN offers lower handoff cost, shorter handoff latency, and less packet losses during the handoff process.

Delay-Constrained Optimal Transmission With Proactive Spectrum Handoff in Cognitive Radio Networks

In this paper, we investigate the transmission strategy for cognitive radios (CRs), which opportunistically operate on various primary users’ channels with the aid of proactive spectrum handoff. In particular, a secondary user (SU) in the CR network proactively predicts the future spectrum status and decides whether to keep idle, or stay in the current channel, or switch to a new channel to resume its transmission. A problem of completing a target data packet size of $\mathcal {V}$ bits within a predefined deadline $D$ time slots is formulated as a discrete-time Markov decision process, in which the SU aims at minimizing its expected total cost, i.e., transmission cost, handoff cost, and overtime penalty. We solve the problem using dynamic programming, and propose a general optimal transmission with the proactive spectrum handoff (OTPH) algorithm whose complexity is $2\times |\mathcal {V}|\times D$ . Furthermore, we prove that for a convex penalty function, the optimal handoff-aided transmission exhibits a threshold structure. A monotone OTPH algorithm with a complexity of ${\max }(|\mathcal {V}|,D)$ is used in this case. Simulation results verify that our proposed scheme achieves both the minimal total cost and the highest data transmission efficiency as compared with the traditional always staying and always changing schemes.

Secure Pre-authentication Schemes for Fast Handoff in Proxy Mobile IPv6

In mobile communication, there are various types of handoff for the support of all forms of mobility. Proxy mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) enables local network-based mobility management of a mobile node without any effect of mobility-related signaling. Recently, PMIPv6 has been considered for supporting mobility management in LTE/SAE-based mobile networks. To support seamless mobility in heterogeneous mobile networks, the overall cost of handoffs needs to be minimized and the procedure should be guaranteed to be secure. However, the reduction of the authentication cost has not been fully investigated to provide seamless connectivity when mobile users perform a handoff between the PMIPv6 domains. This paper proposes secure pre-authentication schemes, completing an authentication procedure before performing a handoff, for a fast handoff in PMIPv6. Analytic models have been used for measuring the authentication latency and for the overhead cost analysis. In addition to providing fast authentication, the proposed pre-authentication schemes can prevent threats such as replay attacks and key exposure.

Efficient Mobility Management Scheme to Support Highway Environment

With the explosion of wireless technologies, variable types of mobility are presented. To provide seamless communication and mobility management, IP based mobility management protocols are proposed. One of them, to provide inter/intra/inner vehicle communication, the vehicles’ mobility management is studied that called VANET (vehicular ad hoc network). However, the mobility of vehicular results in short lived connections to access router (AR), affecting the availability of IP services in VANET. The most critical issue consists of the design of scalable routing algorithms that are robust to frequent path disruption caused by vehicles' mobility. With the navigation information that one of vehicles’ mobility features, we are classified into intra highway mobility and global mobility management mobility. Furthermore, we propose efficient mobility management scheme based on route prediction in VANET. Experimental analysis shows that proposed mobility management protocol reduces handoff latency, signaling costs and packet loss.

Implementation of Forward Pointer-Based Routing Scheme for Wireless Mesh Network

Because of the advantages of flexibility and ease of deployment, wireless mesh network (WMN) has become a promising technology for providing internet access to the users. For implementation of WMN, IEEE 802.11s standard has been developed. To route the packets from source to destination, IEEE 802.11s uses a routing algorithm named hybrid wireless mesh protocol (HWMP). But IEEE 802.11s does not support mobility of external stations. For solving this problem, many mobility management schemes such as: MEsh networks with MObility management, mesh mobility management (M 3), iMesh, Smesh and WMM have been proposed. But, none of the schemes are integrated with HWMP. In this paper, an enhanced form of HWMP named forward pointer-based routing (FPBR) has been introduced. Numerical analysis of both HWMP and FPBR has been carried out. HWMP and FPBR have been simulated in NS2, and their performances have been compared. Simulation results show that by varying number of external stations, on average FPBR outperforms HWMP by 93.9, 49, 86.5 and 16.4 % in terms of normalized routing overhead, throughput, handoff cost and end-to-end delay, respectively. With variation in data transmission rate of external stations, on average FPBR outperforms HWMP by 96, 10, 87 and 12 % in terms of normalized routing overhead, throughput, handoff cost and end-to-end delay, respectively. With variation in maximum movement speed of the external stations, FPBR outperforms HWMP by 94 and 97 % in terms of handoff cost and normalized routing overhead. Finally, the number of route management packets per handoff, obtained from both numerical analysis and simulation results has been compared.

A Survey on Mobility Management Protocols in Wireless Sensor Network-internet Protocol

This paper is intended to contribute towards diverse solutions of developing current issues in WSN-IP mobility management. A survey of mobility protocols, proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force, and their corresponding derivations are presented. These protocols are classified based on host-based, net-based and NEMO. A qualitative comparison of protocols, in terms of macro-mobility, micro-mobility and hand-off approaches is provided. As WSNs are resource constrained, network-based mobility management schemes are more efficient for this network, because the network-based mobility decreases handoff latency and transmission cost by avoiding the participation of all nodes in mobility process separately.