Dealing with location uncertainty in mobile networks using contextual fuzzy cognitive maps as spatial decision support systems

Mobility management in telecommunication networks is basically concerned with managing mobility of a terminal covering location management and handoff management. Handoff management allows a call in progress to continue as the mobile terminal (MT) changes channels or moves between cells. Location management deals with locating roaming mobile terminals (MT) for call delivery. Future networks will have to accommodate both user and network mobility and mobility management will become increasingly important. In present day networks the MT periodically performs location registration to notify the network of its new access point and store changes to its user location profile. The network pages possible user locations based on a mobility model or a location profile available to achieve call delivery with minimal signaling overheads. In this paper we propose a new location tracking strategy based on spatial reasoning decision support systems. Possible user locations are computed by querying a Geographic Information System (GIS) which has a decision support system to enable such queries. We use a contextual fuzzy cognitive map (FCM) as a spatial decision support system along with a GIS. The proposed method is evaluated for paging delays and database query overheads in simulated conditions.