Location management in cellular networks: classification of the most important paradigms, realistic Simulation framework, and relative performance analysis

This paper actualizes the classification of location management methods published up to now and presents results of a related extensive performance comparison of the most important paradigms for location management in cellular networks. First, a universal structure of a performance analysis framework for location management methods is defined and analyzed. Then, both a user mobility model and a specific simulation environment claiming to be as realistic as possible are suggested and implemented. Finally, the simulation framework obtained is used for a systematic comparative performance analysis of a representative sample of the most important location management schemes. The overall conclusion is that a location-area based location management method designed around a profile or history-based direction information offers the absolute best performance, in terms of location management cost, compared to all other alternative approaches. The key difference from previous works in literature is clearly underlined concerning both mobility modeling and novel location management schemes.