Various demands for next generation networks can be condensed into always-best-connected, ubiquitous, mobile, all-IP, application-aware, and converged networks. Vehicles have also come to be ubiquitous computing platforms associated with mobile communication functions. IPv6 has been introduced for all-IP ubiquitous communications. This paper proposes application-aware resource management for in-vehicle IPv6 networks, which are adaptive to different hardware configurations. We focus on power and bandwidth, since their management is critical for mobile communications. To manage these two critical resources, we identify the mobility characteristics and hardware configurations of in-vehicle networks. Based on these characteristics, we propose vehicle-aware power saving schemes. Our main idea for power saving is to dynamically adjust the mobile router (MR) advertisement interval and binding update lifetime. In addition, depending on the hardware configuration of the wireless environment, we propose two adaptive bandwidth management schemes using multihoming, which we refer to as best-connected MR selection based on location and high-data-rate MR selection based on priority. We evaluate the performance of our bandwidth management schemes by performing simulations, and that of our power saving schemes by mathematical analysis. Based on the results, it was found that the performance of each software scheme depends on the hardware configuration, so that an application-aware adaptive scheme is needed to optimize resource consumption.

In this paper, we discuss the performance of a basic scheme to support network mobility. Network mobility arises when an entire network segment, such as a network inside a vehicle, changes its topological location and thus its access point to the fixed backbone network. Mechanisms to support network mobility are necessary to maintain sessions. The approach followed by the IETF (NEMO Basic Support) and us (B-ORC) is to establish a bi-directional tunnel between the mobile network and the Internet. As we show, this bi-directional tunnel is a performance bottleneck and leads to single points of failure. In order to address the issues of the existing mobile network architecture, we propose enhanced operations of the basic mobile network protocol to achieve reliability and efficiency: (1) multiple bi-directional tunnels between the mobile network and the Internet, and (2) policy-based routing. The proposed operations could be realized by extending the existing architecture and protocol. The performance of various multihoming configurations is evaluated based on the implementation of our own basic scheme. The evaluation criteria are delay, throughput and latency. The results are encouraging and show we can achieve a better throughput.

Network Mobility (NEMO) Basic Support is the standard protocol to provide continuous network connectivity and movement transparency to a group of nodes moving together, as in a vehicle. However, the protocol suffers from sub-optimal routing and packet overhead caused by a bi-directional tunnel between the Mobile Router (MR) connecting the mobile network to the Internet and its Home Agent (HA). When a nested NEMO is formed, these inefficiencies become intolerable for real-time multimedia applications. To optimize the delivery of these packets, this study proposes Optimized NEMO (ONEMO) that is capable of providing an optimal path with minimum packet overhead in various scenarios with nested mobility. The protocol is designed to offer the path with minimum signaling overhead and functional requirements are limited to its MRs. Evaluation through measurements against NEMO Basic Support and comparison among other solutions showed effectiveness of the protocol.