An agent - based architecture for mobility management in internet protocol networks

Mobility is afforded by the degree of intelligence or control mechanism in the network for mobility management. In cellular architectures, intelligence is explicitly integrated into the core network resulting in an efficient service with low latencies but a complex architecture with high deployment and operational costs. The Internet’s approach for mobility is simpler with intelligence placed in end-systems and certain specialised nodes, conforming to the Internet’s principle of the end-toend arguments. However, the drawbacks include latencies and packet loss, which have hindered its wide-scale deployment. The research here proposes to address these perplexities by using an approach that enhances mobility management. The main objective is to develop an architecture that exhibits dynamism and improved IP-based mobility but without added complexity in the network core. The proposed architecture, called agent-based mobility protocol (AMP) is a collaborative multiagent system residing in mobile hosts and access networks that facilitates and expedites location and handover management. In developing the AMP architecture, the agency for the mobile host was firstly specified and built using an agent development platform. Next, the heart of AMP architecture i.e. the access network agency was designed and implemented over the network simulator ns-2. The performance of AMP was evaluated based on both derived mathematical and simulation models and compared against Mobile IPv6 with varying call-mobility ratios. Mathematical results indicate that AMP outperformed Mobile IPv6 with an average of 86% lower signaling cost and 85% less handover delay. Simulation results show that AMP reduces packet delay by 39% and packet loss by 48%. Thus, with AMP, an improved IP-based mobility may be achieved through added intelligence but without the necessary complexity in the core. Furthermore, AMP may be well suited for micro-mobility and may give better support for real-time applications.