Prediction Assisted Fast Handovers for Mobile IPv6

Achieving seamless mobility is a major challenge for future wireless networks. Presently, low latency handover protocols such as FMIPv6 depend heavily on link-layer triggers to facilitate proactive handovers. Differences in link-layer technologies and the absence of a standardised trigger model makes it difficult to achieve fast vertical handovers in a multi-access environment. This paper introduces a prediction assisted fast handover protocol (PA-FMIP) that does not rely on pre-triggers. A data mining approach is used to implement the prediction algorithm based on the user’s mobility history between wireless subnets. The performance of the proposed handover scheme is compared to MIPv6, proactive FMIPv6, reactive FMIPv6 and Simultaneous Bindings. Simulation results show a 43% decrease in handover packet loss over reactive FMIPv6 and an improvement in TCP goodput.