Research On Cluster Based Mobility Management In Vehicular Networks

In recent years, vehicular networks attract more and more attention with the rapid development of ITS (Intelligent Transport System). Vehicular networks can improve the traffic safety, comfort and transportation efficiency, and thus make our life better. However, the vehicular networks present some inherent characteristics compard with the traditional network. The nodes in vehicular networks show higher mobility and incur more frequent topology changes. In addition, the node mobility is constrained by the road. The distance between the nodes is closer, thus nodes in vehicular networks often move as cluster. But some previous research did not make full use of these features. Therefore, it is a hot issue and difficult question that how to use these features to provide timely, reliable and continuous data transmission in vehicular networks.Mobility management has been relatively mature in cellular communication systems as well as in Internet. Applying mobility management technology in vehicular networks for communication continuity becomes inevitable an important issue.Based on the understanding of vehicular network and mobility management, the characteristics of the vehicular networks, the technical requirements of mobility management indifferent scenarios are analyzed firstly in this paper. The relevant algorithms about the mobility management in vehicular network based on cluster are then proposed. The major contribtions of this paper includes:1.A clustering algorithm is proposed based on the mobility characteristics of the vehicular networks. This algorithm is based on the basic mobility metrics and extends the concept of spatial dependency as the clustering parameter. By means of network simulation, the performance of algorithm is measured.2. According to the mobility features of nodes and the characteristics of the road layout, this paper puts forward a regional mobility management protocol of vehicular network based on cluster. It follows the idea of regional mobility management the handoff is triggered depending on the region type. The signaling overhead, handoff frequency and packet loss rate is evaluated through simulations.Lastly, the shortcomings of this paper are analyzed, and the directions of future works are given of this paper.