Adaptive, distributed location management in mobile, wireless networks

Location management refers to the problem of updating and searching the current locations of mobile nodes in a wireless network. To make it efficient, the sum of update/lookup costs of a location database must be minimized. Previous work relying on fixed location databases is unable to fully exploit the knowledge of user mobility patterns in the system so as to achieve this minimization. We present a novel location management architecture that can adapt dynamically to user pattern changes. The key idea is to use a hierarchy of agents that act as mobile location databases databases that rapidly replicate to other base-stations in response to a change in user patterns. We provide an analytical cost model for location management and through simulations demonstrate our algorithm's ability to handle location updates and call finding.