SDN-Based Seamless Mobility Management for B5G Services in High-Speed Railways

The emergence of 5G technology has transformed wireless connectivity and ushered in a new era of seamless connectivity while traveling. Enhancing Beyond 5G networks and maintaining a continuous data connection, especially for delay-sensitive applications, requires seamless connectivity and optimized QoS, which is challenging due to frequent service migrations and network management. The existing solutions fail to address dynamic mobility management, trajectory estimation, and handovers in SDN-enabled B5G networks. In this context, this paper proposes an SDN-based dynamic, seamless mobility management framework for B5G used in high-speed railways, leveraging the capabilities of the SDN controller by installing the flow rules dynamically. Further, it enables centralized network control, fine-grained visibility, and a global network view. Our solution incorporates Kalman Filter-based algorithms that predict trajectory and adapt to high mobility, considering speed, location parameters, and trajectory information to make decisions. We present extensive simulation results and observe that our solution effectively performs service migration besides providing high throughput and a minimum end-to-end delay. The solution impressively reduces the service migration time by 30%, i.e., less than 6ms, and end-to-end delay by 40%.

I. Introduction

Seamless Mobility Management (SMM) in the context of Beyond 5G (B5G) is crucial for delivering seamless connectivity. With the advent of B5G technology, which offers unprecedented speed, capacity, and reliability, the demand for seamless mobility experiences proliferates. Eventually, SMM efficiently manages user mobility across multiple gNBs by maintaining QoS, handling service migrations, and optimizing network resources. In the next generation of networks, SMM will become a key enabler for diverse use cases, such as rail travel. These use cases require constant and reliable connectivity with high bandwidth and ultra-low latency [1]. This is essential for delay-sensitive applications that demand real-time responsiveness, such as live streaming, banking, interpretative and critical services, etc. However, the existing literature [2] lacks agile management and flexibility of network resources to perform SMM in B5G. The adoption of SDN allows for flexible and agile management of network resources, enabling efficient service migrations and better QoS. Therefore, advanced network mechanisms and protocols are being developed to achieve SMM in B5G, including handover (HO) delay optimization, intelligent mobility trajectory computation algorithms, and real-time analytics. This will evolve and proliferate with the introduction of advanced mobility management solutions, which will unlock the full potential of this technology and enhance the user experience [3]–[5].