A generic signaling framework for seamless mobility in heterogeneous wireless networks

In recent years several wireless communication standards have been developed and more are expected, each with different scope in terms of spatial coverage, radio access capabilities, and mobility support. Heterogeneous networks combine multiple of these radio interfaces both in network infrastructure and in user equipment which requires a new multi-radio framework, enabling mobility and handover management for multiple RATs. The use of heterogeneous networks can capitalize on the overlapping coverage and allow user devices to take advantage of the fact that there are multiple radio interfaces. This paper presents the functional architecture for such a framework and proposes a generic signaling exchange applicable to a range of different handover management protocols that enables seamless mobility. The interworking of radio resource management, access selection and mobility management is defined in a generic and modular way, which is extensible for future protocols and standards.