On the design of mobility management scheme for 802.16-based network environment

摘要

In this paper, we investigate the characteristics of IEEE 802.16 and conclude that it is better to equip BS (base station) and SS (subscriber station) with Layer 3 functionality. Therefore, an 802.16 network can act as the backbone network of different subnets for better deployment. Based on the two IEEE Specifications, 802.16-2004 and 802.16e, we propose two kinds of paradigms of the 802.16 network technology for mobile networking. In the first paradigm, a novel concept called middle-5 domain mobility management in between macro- and micro-domain for 802.16-2004 is proposed. The management scheme of middle-domain is designed to accommodate different micro-mobility protocols in an 802.16-2004 network environment. Moreover, a mathematical analysis and simulation study are presented for performance evaluation. In the second paradigm, by comparing with traditional overlay networks (e.g. GPRS/WLAN), we have found that the characteristics for the 802.16e/ 802.11 overlay network are actually different from traditional overlay networks. To provide more efficient vertical handoff, a novel protocol called speed-based vertical handoff scheme (SVH) is proposed. A Simulation study has demonstrated that SVH can achieve a better performance than its WLAN-first counterpart in terms of less signaling and fewer packet losses.