Cognitive Mobility Management in Heterogeneous Networks

The heterogeneity depicted by wireless networks and spectrum availability in emergent technologies means that mobility management has got to deal with unconventional changes in operational environment by cognising the changes and adapting accordingly. Although a considerable amount of research on mobility management for heterogeneous networks has been done, mobility management for cognitive radio wireless networks, including the spectrum aware mobility support remains largely unexplored. In this article, the concept of a cognitive interface network is raised and an underlying cognition cycle together with the high level functional architecture are presented to support seamless inter-networking in heterogeneous environments. Integration with the media independent handover framework of the IEEE 802.21 standard is taken as a use case to further describe the functioning of the proposed framework where network resources usage is optimized and user's quality of experience is enhanced through cognitive interfacing.