Mobility management incorporating fuzzy logic for a heterogeneous IP environment

The next generation in mobility management will enable different mobile net works to interoperate with each other to ensure terminal and personal mobil ity and global portability of network services. However, in order to ensure global mobility, the deployment and integration of both satellite and terr estrial components are necessary. This article is focused on issues related to mobility management in a future mobile communications system, in a scen ario where a multisegment access network is integrated into an IP core netw ork by exploiting the principles of Mobile IP. In particular, attention is given to the requirements for location, address, and handover management. I n a heterogeneous environment, the need to perform handover between access networks imposes particular constraints on the type of information availabl e to the terminal and network. In this case, consideration will need to be given to parameters other than radio characteristics, such as achievable qu ality of service and user preference. This article proposes a new approach to handover management by applying the fuzzy logic concept to a heterogeneo us environment. The article concludes with the presentation of mobility man agement signaling protocols.