Takeover: a new vertical handover concept for next-generation heterogeneous networks

One of the major challenges for seamless mobility in next-generation heterogeneous networks is vertical handover, which is the process of maintaining a mobile user´s active connections as it changes its point of attachment. For seamless vertical handover, we introduce a new concept, takeover, which enables a neighbor node to process requests of a mobile node. We develop protocol and operation for the takeover and apply it to vertical handover for next-generation heterogeneous networks. The proposed handover scheme using the takeover protocol reduces average handover latency and so enables a fast and seamless handover between two different access technologies. The simulation results show that the takeover-based vertical handover scheme achieves better performances compared with conventional handover schemes, with respect to handover delay, packet loss, and power consumption.