Global IoT Mobility: A Path Based Forwarding Approach

Abstract

With the huge proliferation of mobile Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as connected
vehicles, drones, and healthcare wearables, IoT networks are promising mobile connectivity capacity
far beyond the conventional computing platforms. The success of this service provisioning is highly
dependent on the flexibility offered by such enabling technologies to support IoT mobility using
different devices and protocol stacks. Many of the connected mobile IoT devices are autonomous, and
resource constrained, which poses additional challenges for mobile IoT communication. Therefore,
given the unique mobility requirements of IoT devices and applications, many challenges are still
to be addressed. This paper presents a global mobility management solution for IoT networks that
can handle both micro and macro mobility scenarios. The solution exploits a path-based forwarding
fabric together with mechanisms from Information-Centric Networking. The solution is equally
suitable for legacy session-based mobile devices and emerging information-based IoT devices such as
mobile sensors. Simulation evaluations have shown minimum overhead in terms of packet delivery
and signalling costs to support macro mobility handover across different IoT domains