Effective Packet Loss Elimination in IP Mobility Support for Vehicular Networks

With the remarkable advances in wireless communications and mobile electronic technologies, traveling users have been demanding continuous and seamless Internet access to enjoy multimedia services such as video streaming, voice over IP, online gaming, and so on, through handheld smart devices. Providing ubiquitous wireless connectivity to mobile users is indispensable to support continuous online services when vehicles move across various kinds of access networks. However, the high vehicle velocity and complex user mobility in the urban environment impose great challenges on designing an efficient mobility management scheme. In this article, we study the packet loss issue in IP mobility support for vehicular networks. We first give detailed descriptions of some major mobility management solutions. Then, we analyze user mobility models in the urban environment and identify the packet loss issue when traveling users roam across various access networks. By flexibly utilizing tunneling and buffering technologies, we correspondingly design a comprehensive solution to eliminate packet loss in each handover scenario of the urban environment. Finally, performance comparisons between the proposed scheme and related proposals have been conducted, which demonstrate a noteworthy potential of the presented scheme in eliminating packet loss and improving handover performance in urban vehicular communications.