Fast handover management in IP-based vehicular networks

Vehicular networks, despite being an important wireless communication technology for the transmission of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) information are faced with challenges as far as handover management is concerned. This is due to the fact that the high mobility nodes tend to have rapid wireless link connections and disconnections thereby, demanding for fast IP configurations which current mobility schemes cannot support. These result in long handover latencies and packet loss effects which consequently degrade the Quality of Service (QoS). To support seamless mobility and guarantee acceptable QoS levels, fast and smooth handovers across various subnets have to be performed for session continuity to be maintained. In this work, we propose a network layer handover scheme called Vehicular Fast handovers for Mobile IPv6 (VFMIPv6) aimed at improving the QoS in vehicular networks by minimising the handover latency, packet loss problems and overhead cost effects. The system description of the proposed solution and an analytical model are outlined. Numerical performance evaluations show that our proposed scheme out-performs the standard solutions.