Network Mobility Basic Support Research Articles

Handoff and Route Optimization in Mobile Networks over IEEE 802.16e

To fulfill the need for on-the-move and uninterrupted internet connectivity in Mobile Networks, IETF NEMO working group was created to extend basic end-host mobility support in Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) protocol. NEMO Basic Support Protocol (NEMO) has been standardized by this group to provide the network mobility support. However, the handover latency in NEMO is high and, the nested tunnels’ problem in the nested NEMO networks is not considered. Many schemes have been proposed to solve these problems by optimizing the handover signaling procedure, and by proposing routing optimization scheme for NEMO. Better optimized signaling procedure is proposed in this paper, and a proposed Routing Optimization scheme as a solution for the lack of the nested tunnels’ problem is proposed as well. Analytical results highlight the importance of the proposed scheme comparing to others are provided, revealing that the proposed scheme has the lowest handover latency and disruption time.

Enhancement of Return Routability Mechanism for Optimized-NEMO Using Correspondent Firewall

Network Mobility (NEMO) handles mobility of multiple nodes in an aggregate manner as a mobile network. The standard NEMO suffers from a number of limitations, such as inefficient routing and increased handoff latency. Most previous studies attempting to solve such problems have imposed an extra signaling load and/or modified the functionalities of the main entities. In this paper, we propose a more secure and lightweight route optimization (RO) mechanism based on exploiting the firewall in performing the RO services on behalf of the correspondent nodes (CNs). The proposed mechanism provides secure communications by making an authorized decision about the mobile router (MR) home of address, MR care of address, and the complete mobile network prefixes underneath the MR. In addition, it reduces the total signaling required for NEMO handoffs, especially when the number of mobile network nodes and/or CNs is increased. Moreover, our proposed mechanism can be easily deployed without modifying the mobility protocol stack of CNs. A thorough analytical model and network simulator (Ns-2) are used for evaluating the performance of the proposed mechanism compared with NEMO basic support protocol and state-of-the-art RO schemes. Numerical and simulation results demonstrate that our proposed mechanism outperforms other RO schemes in terms of handoff latency and total signaling load on wired and wireless links.

Efficient route optimization scheme for nested-NEMO

Network mobility (NEMO) basic support protocol maintains the connectivity when mobile router (MR) of a mobile network changes its point of attachment to the Internet by establishing a bi-directional tunnel between the MR and the home agent (HA). A packet from a correspondent node (CN) traverses through the tunnel to reach the mobile network. Nesting occurs in NEMO when a MR's new attachment point is in another mobile network that has also moved away from its home link. The level of tunneling increases as the level of nesting increases. Multiple levels of tunneling in nested NEMO adds multiple legs to a non-optimized routing path that the IP packets have to traverse in order to reach the final destination. As per our study, an efficient route optimization technique in NEMO, particularly in nested NEMO, is still a research challenge. In this paper, we propose an efficient route optimization scheme for nested NEMO. We use two care-of Addresses for each MR, as well as two types of entries, such as fixed and visiting, in the routing table in each MR. Our route optimization scheme removes the tunnels completely from the nested NEMO in a single step using only one binding update message irrespective of the number of levels in the nest. Our route optimization scheme also works for non-nested NEMO.

Route optimization in mobile IPv6 NEMO

Network Mobility NEMO gives us network communication when whole network is on the move. The need for mobile networks is addressed by NEMO Basic Support Protocol BSP proposed by IETF. Although, the proposed protocol gives us network mobility but there are some disadvantages in using NEMO BSP. These disadvantages include inefficiency in routing the data packets, delay and high latency rate. The latest research in NEMO is mainly focuses on providing solution for efficient routing of data packets. In general scenario of mobile network; a hierarchy is formed with the multiple mobile routers with their mobile nodes which are joined together in hierarchical way with a top level mobile router. The nesting of mobile network increases when new mobile routers join it. The inefficient routing becomes more vital if the nesting of mobile network is high. One feature of NEMO BSP is that the mobile network maintains location privacy for the mobile network nodes. Recent research for optimizing the route tries to solve the issue with a compromise made to location privacy of mobile network nodes. In this paper ROMIN Route Optimization in Mobile IPv6 NEMO we proposed a solution to solve inefficiency of routing with location privacy. The proposed solution is simulated in NS2 and achieves better throughput and less end to end delay as compared to NEMO BSP.

Design and Simulation of a Flow Mobility Scheme Based on Proxy Mobile IPv6

Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) is a network-based mobility support protocol and it does not require Mobile Nodes (MNs) to be involved in the mobility support signaling. In the case when multiple interfaces are active in an MN simultaneously, each data flow can be dynamically allocated to and redirected between different access networks to adapt to the dynamically changing network status and to balance the workload. Such a flow redistribution control is called "flow mobility". In the existing PMIPv6-based flow mobility support, although the MN's logical interface can solve the well-known problems of flow mobility in a heterogeneous network, some missing procedures, such as an MN-derived flow handover, make PMIPv6-based flow mobility incomplete. In this paper, an enhanced flow mobility support is proposed for actualizing the flow mobility support in PMIPv6. The proposed scheme is also based on the MN's logical interface, which hides the physical interfaces from the network layer and above. As new functional modules, the flow interface manager is placed at the MN's logical interface and the flow binding manager in the Local Mobility Anchor (LMA) is paired with the MN's flow interface manager. They manage the flow bindings, and select the proper access technology to send packets. In this paper, we provide the complete flow mobility procedures which begin with the following three different triggering cases: the MN's new connection/disconnection, the LMA's decision, and the MN's request. Simulation using the ns-3 network simulator is performed to verify the proposed procedures and we show the network throughput variation caused by the network offload using the proposed procedures.

Design and formal security evaluation of NeMHIP: A new secure and efficient network mobility management protocol based on the Host Identity Protocol

NEtwork MObility Basic Support (NEMO BS) is a standardized protocol for managing the mobility of a set of nodes that move together as a whole while having continuous connectivity to the Internet through one or more Mobile Routers (MRs). Because it is based on Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6), it inherits the properties of MIPv6, such as the use of IPsec. However, NEMO BS does not address all the features required by the demanding Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) scenario to provide an integrated and global secure mobility management framework. In addition, unlike MIPv6, the routing in NEMO BS is suboptimal, which makes difficult the provision of an adequate service performance. These characteristics make the application of the NEMO BS protocol not optimum in this scenario. An interesting strategy to provide security and good service performance is to consider a protocol that establishes and maintains Security Associations (SAs), such as the Host Identity Protocol (HIP). Different HIP-based approaches have been defined. However, these HIP-based network mobility solutions still present unsolved issues. In this article, we present a secure and efficient network mobility protocol named NeMHIP. NeMHIP provides secure and optimum mobility management and efficient end-to-end confidentiality and integrity protection apart from the basic security properties inherited from HIP. To evaluate the security provisions of NeMHIP, we have conducted a belief-based formal evaluation. The results demonstrate that the defined security goals are achieved by the protocol. Furthermore, we have performed an automated formal evaluation to validate additional security aspects of NeMHIP. Thus, we have modeled NeMHIP using the AVISPA tool and assessed its security when an intruder is present. The results confirm that NeMHIP is a secure protocol that ensures end-to-end confidentiality and integrity without introducing security leaks to the basic HIP. Thus, we have addressed the need found in the literature for providing security and efficiency in the network mobility scenario.

Pros and cons of route optimization schemes for network mobility and their implications on handovers

AbstractNo one can deny the importance of mobility in modern communication networks, and the Internet is no exception. The internet engineering taskforce (IETF) has introduced the network mobility (NEMO) protocol to support a moving network. NEMO solves many problems of mobile internet protocol to support a moving group of users but introduces some problems of its own such as suboptimal routing and multiple levels of encapsulation. These problems occur because the NEMO basic support protocol does not support route optimization and nested mobile networks. Many solutions have been proposed in the literature to solve these problems. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of those solutions and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. We also outline the effect of these solutions on handovers, and a summary is provided in the form of a table at the end. In this paper, we back up our earlier work with a comprehensive discussion of the protocols included. © 2012 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Performance evaluation of user applications in the ITS scenario: An analytical assessment of the NeMHIP

Internet connectivity in the ITS context is a flourishing demand that has to be covered by efficient information and communication technologies. Thanks to the provision of this connectivity, not only end users will profit from communication services, but also services for controlling the operation of the vehicle will benefit from the Internet connectivity. Services related to the operation and control of the vehicles exchange sensitive data, so strong security properties have to be ensured for this type of services. In addition, because of the privacy concerns related to the end users, it is desired to provide this kind of services with an adequate security level. From the communication point of view, a vehicle can be regarded as a mobile network where nodes onboard obtain continuous and optimal Internet connectivity, so, its mobility has to be managed. In the same way, network mobility management protocols should not only avoid security leaks, but also they have to ensure an adequate security level. It is needless to say that the introduction of security properties cannot render not fulfilling service performance requirements. In fact, the trade-off between security and application performance is a must. ITS standardisation bodies have adopted the NEtwork MObility Basic Support (NEMO BS) protocol to manage the mobility of networks. However, it still presents shortcomings like lack of security support and routing problems, which leads to a bad performance. One of the most promising design approaches is to consider a base mobility management protocol that provides out of the box security and route optimisation support like the Host Identity Protocol (HIP). Different solutions based on HIP can be found to solve network mobility in the literature, but none of these solutions aim at solving securely and efficiently network mobility management. That is, the provision of security properties to the network mobility management itself and to the end-to-end data communications while not increasing the signalling overhead and the manageability level remains unsolved. In this paper, we present the NeMHIP. NeMHIP is a secure and efficient network mobility management protocol which is based on HIP. In order to demonstrate its feasibility, we have carried out a study by means of analytical modelling to assess the performance of user applications with stringent QoS requirements like VoIP. Results demonstrate that the introduction of the NeMHIP in the ITS context is feasible because security properties are ensured while application performance requirements are satisfied. Therefore, we successfully achieve the trade-off between security and performance.

A new route optimization scheme for network mobility: Combining ORC protocol with RRH and using quota mechanism

Network mobility (NEMO) based on mobile IP version 6 has been proposed for networks that move as a whole. Route optimization is one of the most important topics in the field of NEMO. The current NEMO basic support protocol defines only the basic working mode for NEMO, and the route optimization problem is not mentioned. Some optimization schemes have been proposed in recent years, but they have limitations. A new NEMO route optimization scheme-involving a combination of the optimized route cache protocol (ORC) and reverse routing header (RRH) and the use of a quota mechanism for optimized sessions (OwR)-is proposed. This scheme focuses on balanced performance in different aspects. It combines the ORC and RRH schemes, and some improvements are made in the session selection mechanism to avoid blindness during route optimization. Simulation results for OwR show great similarity with those for ORC and RRH. Generally speaking, the OwR's performance is at least as good as that of the RRH, and besides, the OwR scheme is capable of setting up optimal routing for a certain number of sessions, so the performance can be improved and the cost of optimal routing in nested NEMO can be decreased.

NGMIP: network-based global mobility support

In this paper, a network-based global mobility support protocol, named NGMIP, is introduced that combines advantages of both mobile IPv6 and proxy mobile IPv6 to provide inter-domain handovers to mobile nodes having no IP mobility stack modification. A hierarchical network architecture supporting both local and global mobility is presented with explanations of handover and packet transmission procedures. Performance analysis has been carried to confirm the proposed protocol's performance in terms of handover latency and protocol operation cost. From the performance analysis, we find that NGMIP outperforms other existing approaches for global mobility both on the handover latency and protocol cost.

PNEMO: A Network-Based Localized Mobility Management Protocol for Mobile Networks

Network mobility has attracted large attention to provide vehicles such as trains with Internet connectivity. NEMO Basic Support Protocol (NEMO-BS) supports network mobility. However, through our experiment using a train in service, NEMO-BS shows that the handover latency becomes very large if the signaling messages are lost due to instability of the wireless link during handover. There are several proposals such as N-PMIPv6 and N-NEMO to support network mobility based on network-based localized mobility management. However, these proposals have problems such as large tunneling overhead and transmission of the control messages for handover on the wireless link. This paper proposes PNEMO, a network-based localized mobility management protocol for mobile networks. In PNEMO, mobility management is basically handled in the wired network so that the signaling messages are not transmitted on the wireless link when handover occurs. This makes handover stable even if the wireless link is unstable during handover. PNEMO uses a single tunneling even if the mobile network is nested. PNEMO is implemented in Linux. The measured performance shows that the handover latency is almost constant even if the wireless link is unstable when handover occurs, and that the overhead of PNEMO is negligible in comparison with NEMO-BS.

이동하는 차량 네트워크에서 멀티캐스팅 지원의 통합 HIP-PMIPv6 핸드오프 기법의 성능분석

본 논문에서 제안한 이동성 관리 기법은 PMIPv6(Proxy Mobile IPv6) 네트워크에서 HIP(Host Identity Protocol)과 멀티캐스팅을 기반으로 하며, 사용자는 서로 다른 관리 도메인간의 핸드오프가 허용된다. 이 기법의 주요 장점은 감소하는 시그널링 오버헤드와 패킷 손실을 가지는 두 가지 타입 노드의 도메인간 핸드오프를 가능하게 하는 것이다. 다시 말해서 이 기법은 네트워크 기반 이동성 지원기법인 멀티캐스팅 지원의 PMIPv6와 호스트 기반 이동성 지원방식인 HIP간의 상호작용을 가능하게 한다. 성능평가는 이 기법이 다른 전역적 이동성 관리 프로토콜과 비교하여 핸드오프 지연과 패킷 손실 측면에서 향상된다는 것을 입증한다. Our proposed mobility management scheme is based on Multicasting and HIP(Host Identity Protocol) in PMIPv6(Proxy Mobile IPv6) Networks, and allows users to handoff within and across different administrative domains. The main advantage of our scheme is to enable the inter-domain handoff of both types of nodes with a reduced signalling overhead and packet losses. Specifically, the scheme enables the interworking between host-based and network-based mobility support, by means of the interaction between PMIPv6 with Multicasting and HIP. Performance evaluations demonstrate that our scheme improves the handoff latency and packet losses compared to other global mobility management protocols.

Enhancing QoS of Mobile Devices by a New Handover Process in PMIPv6 Networks

The handover processes in present IP mobility management protocols incur significant latency, thus aggravating QoS of consumer devices. In this paper, we introduce an enhanced handover process for the Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6) protocol, which is a recently developed IP mobility management protocol aiming at providing network-based mobility support. The proposed handover process further improves handover performance of PMIPv6 by allowing a new access network obtains handover context before a consumer’s mobile node (MN) moves to the new access network. Data packets destined for the MN are buffered to prevent packet loss and immediately delivered to the MN as the MN moves to the new access network. We evaluate the handover latency and data packet loss of the proposed handover process compared to the basic one of PMIPv6. The conducted analysis results confirm that the proposed handover process yields the reduced handover latency compared to that of the basic PMIPv6 and also prevents data packet loss. We moreover evaluate the buffering cost of the proposed handover process.

Analysis of Session Handoff Probability in NEMO-Based Vehicular Networks

Network Mobility (NEMO) basic support protocol enables seamless mobility in vehicular networks. In this paper, we analyze the session handoff probability in NEMO-based vehicular environments. We develop analytical models for the session handoff probability. In particular, we derive the session handoff probabilities for riding and taking off users. Numerical results are given to illustrate the effects of the cell residence time, the numbers of road segments/intersections, the velocity, and the signal delay.

Network Mobility in satellite networks: architecture and the protocol

Mobility management is required to ensure the session continuity for multiple Internet Protocol-enabled devices onboard a satellite that hands off between ground stations. Network Mobility NEMO can efficiently manage the mobility of multiple Internet Protocol-enabled devices that are connected as a mobile network. However, existing mobility management solutions for satellite networks are unable to route through intermediate satellites links when a direct connection with a ground station is lost. We proposed an architecture of NEMO in satellite networks with routing through multiple satellite links using nesting, where a mobile network connects to another mobile network. However, NEMO Basic Support Protocol can be inefficient in satellite networks because of poor nesting formation leading to the routing loop, inefficient routes, and overloaded links. We extended NEMO Basic Support Protocol for the efficient use in satellite networks by augmenting it with a decision criteria for the nesting. Results verify that the extended protocol ensures loop-free and continuous connection despite the loss of direct connection to the ground and provides an insight on how to form the nested NEMO to avoid overloading. The architecture and the extended NEMO protocol can be used for the efficient and continuous transfer of data from satellite networks to the ground. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

DRO: domain-based route optimization scheme for nested mobile networks

The network mobility (NEMO) basic support protocol is designed to support NEMO management, and to ensure communication continuity between nodes in mobile networks. However, in nested mobile networks, NEMO suffers from the pinball routing problem, which results in long packet transmission delays. To solve the problem, we propose a domain-based route optimization (DRO) scheme that incorporates a domain-based network architecture and ad hoc routing protocols for route optimization. DRO also improves the intra-domain handoff performance, reduces the convergence time during route optimization, and avoids the out-of-sequence packet problem. A detailed performance analysis and simulations were conducted to evaluate the scheme. The results demonstrate that DRO outperforms existing mechanisms in terms of packet transmission delay (i.e., better route-optimization), intra-domain handoff latency, convergence time, and packet tunneling overhead.

A Comparative Performance Analysis on NEMO-QoS and MIPv6-QoS in Heterogeneous Environments

Mobility management in heterogeneous networks is an important area since the mobile network may be moving between multiple types of access networks which involve several service providers such as 802.11b WLAN, 802.16 WiMAX and UMTS Networks. In crowded environments, the bottleneck is often between the access link and the mobile network. Being able to prioritize the traffic and allocate a minimum bandwidth guarantee for each user is crucial in this environment. This study presents a novel dynamic QoS provisioning mechanism for network mobility in heterogeneous networks integrated with IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover (MIH) protocol. Network Mobility (NEMO) Basic Support protocol has three important nodes Mobile Network Nodes (MNNs), Mobile Router (MR) and Home Agent (HA). The dynamic QoS provisioning mechanism which consists of traffic marking, prioritizing and scheduling are implemented at the mobile network node domain. While the admission control module is implemented at a mobile router domain. Several experiments are conducted to evaluate the mechanism. The results have shown the importance of less packet loss and delay and higher packet forwarding rate.

Performance Analysis of PMIPv6-Based NEtwork MObility for Intelligent Transportation Systems

While host mobility support for individual mobile hosts (MHs) has been widely investigated and developed over the past years, there has been relatively less attention to NEtwork MObility (NEMO). Since NEMO Basic Support (NEMO-BS) was developed, it has been the central pillar in Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) communication architectures for maintaining the vehicle's Internet connectivity. As the vehicle moves around, it attaches to a new access network and is required to register a new address obtained from the new access network to a home agent (HA). This location update of NEMO-BS often results in unacceptable long handover latency and increased traffic load to the vehicle. To address these issues, in this paper, we introduce new NEMO support protocols, which rely on mobility service provisioning entities introduced in Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6), as possible mobility support protocols for ITS. As a base protocol, we present PMIPv6-based NEMO (P-NEMO) to maintain the vehicle's Internet connectivity while moving and without participating in the location update management. In P-NEMO, the mobility management for the vehicle is supported by mobility service provisioning entities residing in a given PMIPv6 domain. To further improve handover performance, fast P-NEMO (FP-NEMO) has been developed as an extension protocol. FP-NEMO utilizes wireless L2 events to anticipate the vehicle's handovers. The mobility service provisioning entities prepare the vehicle's handover prior to the attachment of the vehicle to the new access network. Detailed handover procedures for P-NEMO and FP-NEMO are provided, and handover timing diagrams are presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocols. P-NEMO and FP-NEMO are compared with NEMO-BS in terms of traffic cost and handover latency.

Lightweight NEtwork MObility Within PMIPv6 for Transportation Systems

NEtwork MObility (NEMO) provides that a moving network involving mobile network nodes (MNNs) can move around the Internet without loss of connection. NEMO Basic Support (NBS) has been developed as an extension of Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) so that it succeeds to drawbacks of host-based mobility management protocol. In NBS, the moving network keeps its connectivity with its home agent (HA) through its registration procedure. In other words, the moving network is required to obtain its new address and to send its own mobility signaling to the HA for every movements. In this paper, a simple and lightweight mechanism for NEMO within Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6), which is a network-based mobility management protocol, is introduced. The proposed mechanism enables a moving network to change its point of attachment at a given PMIPv6 domain without acquiring a new address and sending its own mobility signaling. Mobility service provisioning entities residing at the PMIPv6 domain are extended to support NEMO. The analytical performance analysis is conducted to demonstrate that the moving network in the proposed mechanism achieves the reduced traffic cost and handover latency compared to NBS.

An improved network mobility service for intelligent transportation systems

AbstractIn the past few years, the concept of pervasive connectivity has become of crucial importance. New protocols have therefore been standardized to enable IPv6 mobility, such as the Network Mobility Basic Support (NEMO BS) protocol. This protocol is particularly suited for providing a global IPv6 connectivity in intelligent transportation systems. Yet, despite its popularity and maturity, it still suffers from various limitations which prevent its adoption in large‐scale commercial deployments. Among these are operator specific issues such as the lack of practical and efficient bootstrapping procedure. Also, a global connectivity enables the provision of value‐added services whose attractiveness mainly depends on their ease of configuration. In this paper, we focus on solutions to address both the bootstrapping of NEMO BS and service discovery in a mobile environment. By investigating various bootstrapping proposals, we advocate the use of a standardized solution extended with the missing pieces to operate in a NEMO BS environment. We also expose how operator services could be exported and announced in the mobile subnet. Authentication and authorization to access these services are also investigated. Experiments on a prototype show that our proposal brings the missing blocks towards the deployment of network mobility service in intelligent transportation systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.