Handover is an important property of cellular communication that enables the user to move from one cell to another without losing the connection. It is a very crucial process for the quality of the user’s experience because it may interrupt data transmission. Therefore, good handover management is very important in the current and future cellular systems. Several techniques have been employed to improve the handover performance, usually to increase the probability of a successful handover. One of the techniques is predictive handover which predicts the target cell using some methods other than the traditional measurement-based algorithm, including using machine learning. Several studies have been conducted in the implementation of predictive handover, most of them by modifying the internal algorithm of existing network elements, such as the base station. We implemented a predictive handover algorithm using an intelligent node outside the existing network elements to minimize the modification of the network and to create modularity in the system. Using a recently standardized Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) Near Realtime Radio Intelligent Controller (Near-RT RIC), we created a modular application that can improve the handover performance by determining the target cell using machine learning techniques. In our previous research, we modified The Near-RT RIC original software that is using vector autoregression to determine the target cell by predicting the throughput of each neighboring cell. We also modified the method using a Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural network. In this paper, we redesigned the neural network using Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) that can better handle time series data. We proved that our proposed LSTM-based machine learning algorithms used in Near-RT RIC can improve the handover performance compared to the traditional measurement-based algorithm.

There are demands for high-speed and stable ground-to-train optical communication as a network environment for trains. The existing ground-to-train optical communication system developed by the authors uses a camera and a QPD (Quadrant photo diode) to capture beacon light. The problem with the existing system is that it is impossible to identify the ground station. In the system proposed in this paper, a beacon light modulated with the ID of the ground station is transmitted, and the ground station is identified by demodulating the image from the dual-port camera on the opposite side. In this paper, we developed an actual system and conducted experiments using a car on the road. The results showed that only one packet was lost with the ping command every 1 ms near handover. Although the communication device itself has a bandwidth of 100 Mbps, the throughput before and after the handover was about 94 Mbps, and only dropped to about 89.4 Mbps during the handover.

High-frequency wireless communication is drawing attention because of its potential to actualize huge transmission capacity in the next generation wireless system. The use of high-frequency bands requires dense deployment of access points to compensate for significant distance attenuation and diffraction loss. Dense deployment of access points in a mobility environment triggers an increase in the frequency of handover because the number of candidate access points increases. Therefore, simple handover schemes are needed. High-frequency wireless systems enable station position to be determined using their wideband and highly directional communication signals. Thus, simple handover based on position information estimated using the communication signal is possible. Interruptions caused by handover are also a huge barrier to actualizing stable high-frequency wireless communications. This paper proposes a seamless handover scheme using multiple radio units. This paper evaluates the combination of simple handover and the proposed scheme based on experiments using a formula racing car representing the fastest high-speed mobility environment. Experimental results show that seamless handover and high-speed wireless transmission over 200Mbps are achieved over a 400-m area even at station velocities of greater than 200km/h.

Due to the significant difference in speed between the user terminals (UTs) and the low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, it is necessary to solve the frequent handover of UTs at the edge of the moving satellite beams. Besides, as the development of LEO satellite communications, the scale of constellations and the number of UTs undergoing massive increase. Thus, in this paper, a satellite handover strategy is proposed to improve the handover performances of UTs and satellites. We define the utility function of handover jointly by considering the quality of experience of UTs, the throughput of satellites and the load balancing of network. Then, a coding method is proposed to represent the combinations of UTs and satellites. To reduce the calculational cost, an access and handover strategy based on a heuristic algorithm is proposed to search the optimal handover result. Finally, simulations show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed strategy.

Among the five carrier aggregation (CA) deployment scenarios, the most preferred scenario is Scenario 1, which maximizes CA gain by fully overlapping a primary cell (PCell) and one or more secondary cells (SCells). It is possible since the same frequency band is used between component carriers (CCs) so nearly the same coverage is expected. However, Scenario 1 cannot guarantee high throughput in multi-radio access technology carrier aggregation (multi-RAT CA) which is actively being researched. Different carrier frequency characteristics in multi-RAT CA makes it hard to accurately match different frequency ranges. If the ranges of PCell and SCell differ, high throughput may not be obtained despite the CA operation. We found a coverage mismatch of approximately 37% between the PCell and SCell in the deployed network and realized a reduced CA gain in those areas. In this paper, we propose a novel PCell change approach named “PCell frequency switching (PFS)” to guarantee high throughput against cell coverage mismatch in multi-RAT CA deployment scenario 1. The experiment results show that the throughput increased by 9.7% on average and especially by 80.9% around the cell edge area when PFS is applied instead of the legacy CA handover operation.

In this paper, we present an Energy-efficient Mobile Group Clustering (EMGC) protocol that supports group mobility and a group handover scheme. The mobile sensor nodes are divided into three categories, namely cluster heads, group leaders and group members. In our cluster formation and group handover scheme, group leaders and cluster heads do most of the communications to save on energy consumption during which group members are placed in the sleep condition. This scheme will reduce the number of control packets and frequent topology changes in the networks. Simulation results show that the EMGC protocol outperforms MN-LEACH, GMAC, MBC protocols in terms of energy dissipation and the number of data items received at a base station.

An efficient handover measurement technique is proposed for millimeter-wave (mm-wave) cellular systems with directional antenna beams. As the beam synchronization signal (BSS) carries the cell ID and the beam ID in a hierarchal manner, handover events (interbeam handover and intercell handover) are distinguished at the physical layer. The proposed signal metrics are shown to be effective in detecting the beam boundaries and cell boundaries in mm-wave cellular systems, which allows to distinguish interbeam handover from intercell handover. The proposed handover measurement technique is shown to reduce the processing time significantly using the proposed signal metrics produced by the BSS.

Wireless technologies that offer high data rate are generally energy-consuming ones while low-energy technologies commonly provide low data rate. Both kinds of technologies have been integrated in a single mobile device for different services. Therefore, if the service does not always require high data rate, the low energy technology, i.e., Bluetooth, can be used instead of the energy-consuming one, i.e., Wi-Fi, for saving energy. It is obvious that energy savings are maximized by turning the unused technology off. However, when active sessions of ongoing services migrate between different technologies, the network-layer connectivity must be maintained, or a vertical handover (VHO) between different networks is required. Moreover, when the networks are not interconnected, the VHO must be fully controlled by the device itself. The device typically navigates traffic through the firmware of the wireless network interface cards (WNIC) using their drivers, which are dependent on the vendors. To control the traffic navigation between WNICs without any modification of the WNICs' drivers, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) can be applied locally on the mobile device, the so called local SDN. In the local SDN architecture, a local SDN controller (SDNC) is used to control a virtual OpenFlow switch, which turns WNICs into its switch ports. Although the SDNC can navigate the traffic, it lacks the global view of the network topology. Hence, to correctly navigate traffic in a VHO process, an extended SDN controller (extSDNC) was proposed in a previous work. With the extSDNC, the SDNC can perform VHO based on a link layer trigger but with a significant packet loss rate. Therefore, in this paper, a framework named esVHO is proposed that executes VHO at the network layer to reduce the packet loss rate and reduce energy consumption. Experiments on VHO performance prove that esVHO can reduce the packet loss rate considerably. Moreover, the results of an energy saving experiment show that esVHO performs high energy saving up to 4.89 times compared to the others.

Due to the rapid growth of applications that are based on Internet of Things (IoT) and real-time communications, mobile traffic growth is increasing exponentially. In highly populated areas, sudden concentration of numerous mobile user traffic can cause radio resource shortage, where traffic offloading is essential in preventing overload problems. Vertical handover (VHO) technology which supports seamless connectivity across heterogeneous wireless networks is a core technology of traffic offloading. In VHO, minimizing service interruption is a key design factor, since service interruption deteriorates service performance and degrades user experience (UX). Although 3GPP standard VHO procedures are designed to prevent service interruption, severe quality of service (QoS) degradation and severe interruption can occur in real network environments due to unintended disconnections with one's base station (BS) or access point (AP). In this article, the average minimum handover interruption time (HIT) (i.e., the guaranteed HIT influence) between LTE and Wi-Fi VHO is analyzed and measured based on 3GPP VHO access and decision procedures. In addition, the key parameters and procedures which affect HIT performance are analyzed, and a reference probability density function (PDF) for HIT prediction is derived from Kolmogorov-Smirnov test techniques.

To deal with the recent explosion of mobile data traffic, heterogeneous cellular networks, in which a large number of small cells are deployed in a macro-cell coverage area, are considered to be a promising approach. However, when a mobile terminal (MT) traveling at a high velocity moves through several small cells in a short period of time, the frequent handovers (HOs) that occur between small cells lead to a deterioration of user quality of experience. To avoid such HO problems, while improving the network capacity in the heterogeneous cellular network, it is effective to introduce an inter-layer HO control policy where MTs traveling at high velocities are connected to the macro-cell layer to reduce the number of HOs and MTs traveling at low velocities or which are stationary are connected to the small-cell layer for offloading traffic from the macro-cells to the small-cells. However, to realize such inter-layer HO control policy in the heterogeneous cellular network, it is crucial to estimate the velocity of each MT. Due to the technological constraints of MT velocity estimation based on the Global Positioning Systems (GPS), we focus on MT velocity estimation algorithms which do not require information provided by GPS. First, we discuss the issues of the existing MT velocity estimation algorithms and then focus on a MT velocity estimation algorithm based on a conventional Doppler spread detection using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Since few studies have evaluated Doppler spread based MT velocity estimation techniques for practical communication systems in actual radio propagation environments, we implement the MT velocity estimation algorithm to a Long Term Evolution (LTE) based experimental system, and perform its field experiments. Based on these experimental results we also evaluate the high or low velocity decision accuracy for the inter-layer HO control policy and show that good decision accuracy is achieved in both line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) outdoor propagation environment. These results show its feasibility for practical mobile communication systems in actual radio propagation environments.

This paper presents an improved Mobile WiMAX handover (HO) algorithm for real-time application by using a Link_Going_Down (LGD) trigger technique. Mobile WiMAX is a wireless networking system based on the IEEE 802.16e standard. In order to support phone mobility, a HO scheme of some kind must be adopted, and in this standard hard handover (HHO) is defined as mandatory. Since, the fact that there will be a pause in data transmission during the HO process, delay in communication will occur. Thus, the HO time (>50ms) can degrade system performance when implemented in real-time applications such as Video Streaming or Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). Additionally, the HHO takes approximately 300ms because the HO process doesn't start at the best point. The HHO standard considers only the received signal strength (RSS) to decide initiation. The mobile station velocity is also an important factor in HO initiation that should not be neglected. To deal with the problems of handover delay, this paper proposes a new HO scheme. This scheme adopts the dynamic HO threshold that used LGD technique to define the starting HO process. This technique is based on the RSSD (measured by the Doppler Effect technique), mobile velocities and handover time. Consequently, the HO process starts at the right time and HO time is reduced (<50 ms) and the network resource utilization is enhanced to be more efficient.

To substantially alleviate the human blockage problem in mmWave communications, this paper proposes a proactive handover system based on human blockage prediction using RGB and depth (RGB-D) cameras. The proposed scheme uses RGB-D camera images to estimate the mobility of pedestrians and to predict when blockage will occur. On the basis of this information, the proposed system transfers a mobile station (STA) communicating with one wireless BS (base station) to another BS before human blockage occurs and thus avoids blockage-induced throughput degradation. This paper presents performance modeling of both proactive handover scheme and reactive handover scheme which is based on the received power level. A numerical evaluation reveals conditions under which the proactive handover scheme achieves higher spectral efficiency compared to reactive scheme. In addition, using IEEE 802.11ad-based wireless local area network (WLAN) devices, a testbed for implementing the proposed system is built. The innovative experimental results demonstrate that the proactive handover system can considerably reduce the duration of human blockage-induced degradation of throughput performance relative to the reactive scheme.

There is a strong demand to enjoy broadband and stable Internet connectivity not only in office and the home but also in high-speed train. Several systems are providing high-speed train with Internet connectivity using various technologies such as leaky coaxial cable (LCX), Wi-Fi, and WiMAX. However, their actual throughputs are less than 2Mbps. We developed a free-space optical (FSO) communication transceiver called LaserTrainComm2014 that achieves the throughput of 1 Gbps between the ground and a train. LaserTrainComm2014 employs a high-speed image sensor for coarse tracking and a quadrant photo-diode (QPD) for accurate tracking. Since the image captured by the high-speed image sensor has several types of noise, image processing is necessary to detect the beacon light of the other LaserTrainComm2014. As a result of field experiments in a vehicle test course, LaserTrainComm2014 achieves handover time of 21 milliseconds (ms) in the link layer at the speed of 60km/h. Even if the network layer signaling takes time of 10 milliseconds, the total communication disruption time due to handover is short enough to provide passengers with Internet connectivity for live streaming Internet applications such as YouTube, Internet Radio, and Skype.

At present, wireless local area networks (WLANs) based on IEEE802.11 are widely deployed in both private premises and public areas. In a public environment offering several access points (APs), a station (STA) needs to choose which AP to associate with. In this paper, we propose a distributed association control scheme with user guidance to increase users' utility based on uplink and downlink throughputs of individual stations. As part of the scheme, we also present a simple throughput estimation method that considers physical data rate, traffic demand, and frame length in both uplink and downlink. Basically, in the proposed scheme, an AP selects a user and suggests that the user moves to another AP if certain conditions are met. The user then decides whether to accept the suggestion or not in a self-interested manner or in a voluntary manner for the benefit of all users including the user's own self. Through simulations under this condition, we confirm that our distributed association control scheme can improve user utility and fairness even though the channel quality of the new AP is unknown in advance.

In this letter, we present a new method of alleviating the deterioration in the quality of real-time video service during vertical handover (VHO). The proposed method stochastically delays the starting time of the service disruption of VHO in order to reduce the number of lost frames caused by the inter-frame dependency of multi-layered video traffic. The results show that the proposed method significantly decreases the average frame loss time at the sacrifice of an increased handover execution time by one half of the group of picture (GOP) interval of the video traffic.

Open-access femtocell networks assure the cellular user of getting a better and stronger signal. However, due to the small range of femto base stations (FBSs), any motion of the user may trigger handover. In a dense environment, the possibility of such handover is very frequent. To avoid frequent communication disruptions due to phenomena such as the ping-pong effect, it is necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the cell selection method. Existing selection methods commonly uses a measured channel/cell quality metric such as the channel capacity (between the user and the target cell). However, the throughput experienced by the user is time-varying because of the channel condition, i.e., owing to the propagation effects or receiver location. In this context, the conventional approach does not reflect the future performance. To ensure the efficiency of cell selection, user's decision needs to depend not only on the current state of the network, but also on the future possible states (horizon). To this end, we implement a learning algorithm that can predict, based on the past experience, the best performing cell in the future. We present in this paper a reinforcement learning (RL) framework as a generic solution for the cell selection problem in a non-stationary femtocell network that selects, without prior knowledge about the environment, a target cell by exploring past cells' behavior and predicting their potential future states based on Q-learning algorithm. Then, we extend this proposal by referring to a fuzzy inference system (FIS) to tune Q-learning parameters during the learning process to adapt to environment changes. Our solution aims at minimizing the frequency of handovers without affecting the user experience in terms of channel capacity. Simulation results demonstrate that· our solution comes very close to the performance of the opportunistic method in terms of capacity, while fewer handovers are required on average.· the use of fuzzy rules achieves better performance in terms of received reward (capacity) and number of handovers than fixing the values of Q-learning parameters.

Currently, a correspondent host will have difficulties in establishing a direct session path to a mobile host because of the partial deployment of MIPv6-aware mobile hosts. Even MIPv6-aware hosts will spend up to several seconds to obtain the new location of the mobile host during Layer 3 (L3) handover. This paper proposes an application-level mobility management scheme that can solve the problems related to the increase of Internet traffic end-to-end delay under the current situation that most of the mobile devices are MIPv6-non-aware. The proposed Secure Mobility Management Application (SMMA) enables the updates of care-of address to be faster and more reliable even when L3 handovers occur frequently. SMMA uses a cross-layer approach for session mobility management with the support of Binding Updates to the home agent via IPSec tunnels. The main feature of SMMA is to handle the session-related mobility management for which operation starts just after the completion of name resolution as a pre-call mobility management, which operates in conjunction with the DNS. Our session-related mobility management introduces three new signaling messages: SS-Create for session state creation, SS-Refresh for session state extension and SS-Renewal for updating new care-of address at the mid-session. Finally, this paper analyzes the work load imposed on a mobile host to create a session state and the security strength of the SS-Renewal message, which depends on the key size used.

In order to prevent the degradation of TCP performance while traversing two WLANs, we present an implementation design of an inter-domain TCP handover method based on cross-layer and multi-homing. The proposed handover manager (HM) in the transport layer uses two TCP connections previously established via two WLANs (multi-homing) and switches the communication path between the two connections according to the handover trigger and the comparison of new/old APs. The handover trigger and comparison are conducted by assessing the wireless link quality using the frame-retry information obtained from the MAC layer (cross-layer). In a previous study, we proposed a preliminary concept for this method and evaluated its functional effectiveness through simulations. In the present study, we design an implementation considering a real system and then examine the effective performance in a real environment because a real system has several system constraints and suffers from fluctuations in an actual wireless environment. Indeed, depending on the cross-layer design, the implementation often degrades the system performance even if the method exhibits good functional performance. Moreover, the simple assessments of wireless link quality in the previous study indicated unnecessary handovers and inappropriate AP selection in a real environment. Therefore, we herein propose a new architecture that performs cross-layer collaboration between the MAC layer and the transport layer while avoiding degradation of system performance. In addition, we use a new assessment scheme of wireless link quality, i.e., double thresholds of frame retry and comparison of frame retry ratio, in order to prevent handover oscillation caused by fluctuations in the wireless environment. The experimental results demonstrate that the prototype system works well by controlling two TCP connections based on assessments of wireless link quality thereby achieving efficient inter-domain TCP handover in a real WLAN environment.

Cell Range Expansion (CRE) is a promising technique for the enhancement of traffic offload to pico cells. CRE is realized by adjusting the trigger timing of handover (HO) toward/from pico cells. However, inappropriate setting of trigger timing results in HO failures or Ping-Pong HOs. Both the HO failures and the Ping-Pong HOs degrade the continuity of user data services. Therefore, when CRE is applied, both the HO failures and the Ping-Pong HOs should be kept suppressed in order to guarantee the continuity of services for users. However, in the conventional studies, the application of CRE is discussed without consideration of HO performance. This paper clarifies the application range of CRE from the perspective of HO performance by taking the HO failure rates and the Ping-Pong HO rates as HO performance measures. As an example, we reveal that there is an appropriate CRE bias values which keep both the HO failure rate and Ping-Pong HO rate less than 1%. Such an appropriate CRE bias value range is smaller than the one without consideration of HO performance, which is reported in the conventional studies. The authors also observed that Ping-Pong HO occurs due to the short staying time of users at pico cells in high velocity environment. The rate of such Ping-Pong HOs becomes more than about 1% when the user velocity is more than 60 km/h. Therefore, it is more difficult in high velocity environment than that in low velocity environment to find appropriate CRE bias values.

As we are moving toward next generation wireless networks, we are facing the integration of heterogeneous access networks. The main challenge is to provide mobile users moving freely across different radio access technologies with satisfactory quality of services for a variety of applications. Consequently, the seamless roaming over heterogeneous networks is an important concern. To minimize the disruption to the ongoing session when a mobile user is moving from one access network to another, we propose a framework that integrates IEEE 802.11 WLANs and IEEE 802.16 WMANs based on the IEEE 802.21, so-called Media Independent Handover (MIH), to facilitate both homogeneous and heterogeneous handovers. Both numerical analysis and simulation results show that seamless roaming between WLAN and WMAN can be achieved and much better performance can be obtained compared with the IEEE 802.21 standard approach.