Improved Handover Signaling for 5G Networks

Abstract

Mobility management is a critical component for any new wireless standard to be ubiquitous. While 4G-LTE and prior wireless standards utilized vendor specific hardware and software on which mobility management (MM) functionality was implemented, recent 5G architecture releases by 3GPP indicate a complete departure from the same. 3GPP in release 14 and the upcoming release 15 has stressed upon the utilization of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) as the drivers of 5G technology. Consequently, new challenges related to MM and specifically handover management will be encountered owing to the inter-working setup between the 5G Next-Gen Core (NGC) and the Evolved Packet System (EPS) core. In this paper, we exploit the SDN to enhance the signaling of the HO methods proposed by 3GPP. Although the proposed approach can be applied to any HO method, in this paper we specifically evaluate the scenario wherein a dedicated interface between the Mobility Management Entity (MME) in the EPC and the Access and Mobility management Function (AMF) in the 5G NGC, i.e., N26 as specified by 3GPP, is nonexistent. Such a scenario is reasonable during the initial deployment phases of 5G networks. We show that the proposed mechanism is efficient as compared to the 3GPP handover strategy in terms of latency, transmission and processing costs.

Evolutionary 4G/5G Network Architecture Assisted Efficient Handover Signaling

“…And as will be seen in Section IV.C, the HO failure aware mechanism not only enhances the HO failure step but it also presents additional enhancement for the HO preparation signaling step. Thus, the current article significantly advances our preliminary works performed in [16] and [17]. Subsequently, in this paper, we have provided a simple yet rigorous analytical methodology to validate the proposed mechanism.…”

“…In contrast, through this article, we propose an evolutionary architecture, considering the co-existence of the legacy networks (4G, 3G, 2G) and the newly proposed 5G networks, that enables a manageable CAPEX for the operators whilst also enhancing the handover preparation and failure phase performance. It is important to state here that, although our preliminary works such as [16] and [17] utilize an evolutionary architecture that enhances the handover preparation phase for the legacy as well as the 5G networks (only when there is no N26 interface), in the current work we advance these and other research efforts, discussed in the state of the art, by:…”

A Handover Planning Optimization Technique for 5G Systems

“…In line with the study of (Miyim et al, 2014;Jain et al, 2018;Gong et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2019;Chounos et al, 2019;Mandour et al, 2019;Ahmad et al, 2017;Indra et al, 2019a, b) simulation Software such as Earth Explorer, Global Mapper 15 and Forsk Atoll were used to import the digital map and configuration the 5G network. Earth explorer is used to explorer the world's largest collection of images of the Earth's surfaces.…”

Applications of Extreme Gradient Boosting for Intelligent Handovers from 4G To 5G (mm Waves) Technology with Partial Radio Contact

“…In [28][29][30], assisted handover signaling was discussed, showing limitations in terms of uninterrupted data transmission, latency, delay, and battery drainage. Therefore, their research work contradicted the promising features of 5G technology.…”