Context-aware handover using active network technology

Context-aware computing can play a major role to improve the services of mobile networking systems. In this paper, we focus on optimizing handover decisions in heterogeneous environments, where the user has a choice among different mobile networks and access points. In our approach, the decision is not only based on the signal quality, but also on the knowledge about the context of mobile devices and networks. Since context information and context processing evolves fast, we propose a flexible, integrated approach for context management, which can adapt in several ways. Our architecture encompasses programmable platforms and distributed context management components in network nodes and mobile devices, as well as a service deployment scheme for network services. This flexible architecture is able to actively deploy different handover services. It manages dynamic context information and allows mobile devices to be always connected to the most suitable access network. Our architecture is validated in a prototype implementation and performance results are discussed. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.