Director of Studies: Dr Mosa Ali Abu-Rgheff

Group: Mobile Communications Research

Department: School of Computing, Communications and Electronics

University: University of Plymouth, UK

 
1.     Research Project

Optimised Mobile IPv6 and SIP Integration Architecture for Future-Generation Advanced Mobility Support

2.     OPNET Software in Use

OPNET Modeller with Wireless Module and IPv6 Module

3.     Overview

Future-generation (beyond 3G) wireless systems are expected to be IPv6-based to provide multimedia mobile communications anywhere and anytime. Advanced mobility support is thus the key enabler to fulfil such an attractive yet challenging vision. Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6) is the de facto mobility management standard. Compared with Mobile IPv4 (MIPv4), MIPv6 offers significant benefits such as the built-in route optimisation for improved routing efficiency.

However, as far as real-time applications are concerned, these improvements do not prove adequate. Real-time applications are sensitive to handoff delay and the change of application-level session properties such as different codecs for Voice over IP due to mobility. On the other hand, the standard MIPv6 suffers from the lack of fast handoff capability even with the help of micro-mobility schemes, let alone application-level mobility support since MIPv6 operates in the network layer. Correspondingly, this work investigates novel solutions to both problems. 

An optimised Mobile IPv6 are designed and are integrated with the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which offers the desired application-level session control capabilities. Therefore, the integrated Mobile IPv6 and SIP architecture is able to support handoffs of both real-time and non-real-time applications in a more effective and efficient way.