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International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, Vol 2, No. 1, November 2009

Fast Handoff Mobile IP Protocol Using A Novel

Route Optimization Technique
Sajal Saha1, Asish K Mukhopadhayay2, and Surajjan Ghose3
1
Narula Institute of Technology/Dept. of Computer Application, Kolkata, India
Email: sajalkrsaha@rediffmail.com
2
Dr.B.C.Roy Engg. College / Dept. of ECE, Durgapur, India
Email: akm55@gmail.com
3
Jadavpur University / Dept. of CSE, Kolkata, India
Email: sghose@cse.jdvu.ac.in

Abstract—Route optimization is a common technique to solve

the triangular routing problem in Mobile IP. This paper
evaluates various route optimization schemes available in the
literature and prepares a comparative analysis of those
schemes. It proposes a novel pilot agent based route
optimization technique that reduces the handoff delay
efficiently. The scheme has been simulated using OPNET and
the results show that the proposed scheme ensures packet
transfer through correspondent node in a secure manner with
smooth handoff even during frequent movement of mobile node
without call dropping.
Index Terms—Route optimization, Mobile IP, Triangular
routing.
I. INTRODUCTION
Mobile IP protocol allows a Mobile node (MN) to move
from one place to another in the Internet and still maintains
communication with other nodes known as correspondent
nodes (CNs). In Mobile IP packets coming from CN is
received by the HA which redirects it to the MN through the
FA. However, the MN can send the packets directly to the
CN. Thus, overall routing path becomes triangular as shown
in Fig. 1. This extended routing path is known as triangular
routing problem. IETF defined route optimization (RO)
[2][9][10] technique in 1996 to resolve triangular routing
problem. In this technique, the CN can send the packets
directly to the MN. Whenever MN is away and attached to a
Foreign Agent (FA) with its care-of-address (CoA), it
updates the binding cache by sending binding update request
to the CN. In case of further change of FA while roaming,
the old FA maintains a binding cache entry for the MN, and
delivers the packets to the MN’s new CoA so that packet
drop can not occur.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. We compare
different existing RO schemes in Section 2. We present our
proposed scheme in Section 3. The simulation results are
presented in Section 4. Finally we present our conclusion in
Section 5.
Figure 1. Triangular routing in Mobile IP.
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II. COMPARISON OF EXISTING RO SCHEMES
Pekka Nikander et el. [1] analyzed the security issues with
RO in MIPv6 using Return Routability technique. Perkins
[2] introduced RO extension in MIPv6 that enables reliable
handoff between FA and MN. MOTOROLA introduced
route optimization for iDEN (Integrated Dispatch Enhanced
Network) system [3] where FA keeps all the binding updates
for a MN and transmit those directly through tunneling to the
destination node. When a new MN comes into the foreign
network, the binding update is forwarded to all the FAs so
that no binding warning (BW) message is introduced to HA.
Quang Gao et el [5] proposed virtual HA based route
optimization scheme. The basic idea presented in this paper
is based on two major assumptions, a) there is actually no
need of a permanent HA throughout and b) MN tends to be
highly localized during session period (The period in which
all active connections starts and terminates). Thus, if the
temporary address is not changed during this session period,
there will be no connection disruption. Actually one of the
hosts within the MN's footprint is set as its virtual HA
(VHA). It retains its Virtual Home Address (VHoA) during a
particular session period. According to the 2nd assumption a
MH is closer to its VHA (abiding to locality concepts during
session period). Thus tunneling packets by VHA to MH will
lower or almost eliminate the triangle routing problem. The
Basic idea of [6] is to set up a correspondent agent (CA)
similar to HA & FA. The proposed solution gives the task of
maintaining and updating binding caches & encapsulating
messages to a single CA instead of a number of
correspondent hosts in a network. Chun-Hsin Wu et el. [7]
proposed bi-directional route optimization technique. This
technique enables a CN and a MN to communicate with each
other directly without the intervention of the HA and solves
the triangular routing problem using a bi-directional tunnel.
Here, a correspondent agent (CA) is also introduced to keep
the transparency to the CN’s and also to serve multiple CN’s
of its subnet. The CA maintains a Binding cache and
intercepts all the packets which are sent to and from the
CN’s. Similarly, a FA maintains a tunneling cache to
implement a bi-directional technique. In [8], a new entity
called Mobile Router (MR) has been proposed. These MRs
are places all the way around the network so that in between
every path there is at least one MR. These MRs are also
designed to have wireless links. There will be high
probability that there exists one or more MR in the path
between HA to CN or CN to HA. Also there is high
probability that the MR in the path from HA to CN will be
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International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, Vol 2, No. 1, November 2009
same as in the path from CN to HA. Instead of the CN, these it to the MN bypassing the HA. But if in any case there is no
MRs will keep their binding caches updated on the basis of MR encountered, then the HA receives the message and
the messages that they catch in its transition from HA to CN tunnels it to MN as in MIP. The binding entries in MR will
or vice versa. Now every time CN sends a message to HA, if have a specific life time after which it will be discarded. We
it gets encountered by any of the MR in its path that has the have considered these salient optimization schemes and
relevant information then it intercepts the packet and tunnels prepared a comparative analysis as summarized in Table 1.

TABLE I. A COMPARISON OF EXISTING PROTOCOLS

Protocol/Methodology IP version Advantage / Drawback/shortcomings Hand off Latency

Contribution

Return Routibility 2003[1] 6 Provide Security
Against active attacks
through return rout ability.
RO extension 1998 [2] 6 Decrease in Handoff
Latency through modified
registration request message
and agent advertisement
message.
MIP RO in iDEN System 6 MN sends the packet
1997 [3] directly to FA bypassing the
HA and reduce handoff
latency.
NS2 Simulation of RO in 4 Enables IPv4 to support RO.
MIP 2003 [4]
Virtual HA based scheme 4 No need of secure
2000 [5] distribution of mobile
binding, transparency, runs
on basic MIP.
Agent Based RO 2001[6] 6 Mobility is completely
transparent to the MN,
scalable, simple,
performance is better than
[2].
Bidirectional RO in Mobile 4 CN and MN directly
IP over wireless LAN 2002 communicate with each
[7] without the intervention of
the HA.
The lifetime of the state created High
at CN is deliberately restricted to
a few minutes , this leads to
worthless exchange HoT
message through HA every few
minutes.
Low Security Low
Required larger memory for FA Low
to maintain the binding cache.
Only two RO messages have Low
been used (Binding Update &
Binding Warning).
Mainly client application is Low
considered,
Assuming that MNs are highly
localized during session period.
Single Point of Failure(CA’s Low
binding cache),Accessing &
updating of binding cache will
be time taking.
Agents need to be upgraded to Low
support some extra
functionalities like binding and
tunneling cache.

RO using mobile router(MR) 4 Scalable, Transparent, Not cost effective as a number Low
2003[8] Problem of one point failure of MNs have to be installed,
is reduced as there is a More memory is needed as two
number of copies kept in all MRs may keep same
the intermediate MR. informations, that will be
redundant.

III. PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE

We propose one of the Home or Foreign agents in the
network to be assigned as the Pilot Agent (PA). It will act on
behalf of each individual CN to maintain binding caches, and
tunneling the datagram to the MNs. In this way, the route
optimization function becomes transparent to the end nodes,
without requiring any modification in the CNs. In addition, a
PA can manage binding caches for a number of end nodes in
the same subnet. When multiple CNs in the same subnet
communicates with a particular MN, a single Binding Update
message is required to be sent to the PA, thereby reducing
signaling traffic. The binding table consists of three fields,
namely home address (HoA), care-of-address (CoA) and
Time to Leave (TTL). We keep the binding table as binary
search tree format to reduce the mapping time in the binding
table. It will speed up the searching of CoA and reduce

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the handoff latency. As a binding warning message comes TABLE II.

SOME IMPORTANT PARAMETERS TAKEN IN SIMULATION
from an external network, security needs to be imposed. Each
MN has a unique id in the binding message which can be
encoded using Huffman encoding technique to obtain a TTL threshold 7 Sec
compressed data. It can then be used as a checksum and Binding cache lifetime 100 Sec
appended with the binding warning message which contains Input buffer size 8mb
the CoA of MN. On the other hand, the HA keeps record of Maximum buffer size 50 bytes
all its MN’s id and the corresponding hash function. After Binding update lifetime 1800sec
receiving the binding warning message, the HA itself works MN registration retry maximum 4
out the hash function with MN’s unique id and its HoA and Registration request interval 4
produce the checksum. If it matches the one that is received,
Minimum retransmission timeout 10 Sec
then the HA accepts the message otherwise rejects it. After
Minimum retransmission timeout 120 Sec
the successful authentication of binding warning message, HA
sends MN’s CoA to PA. In this way we achieve highly CN data rate 1 Mbps
secured RO with lower handoff latency. MN,CN transmitter power 0.005 Watt
MN,CN packet reception power threshold 0.95 dBm

Handoff point

Figure 2. Proposed architecture.

Figure 3. Packet transfer between Corresponding node (sender) & Mobile
node (receiver).
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
We have used OPNET modeler simulator to evaluate the
performance of the proposed RO scheme with the assumption
that the CN’s are also within the mobile IP domain. Some
important parameters considered in simulation are shown in
Table 2. The basic functional modules included in simulation
are MN, HA, PA and two foreign agents FR0 and FR1 as
shown in Fig. 2. Initially, the MN resides at the home network
and receives packets from CN through the PA.
When the MN starts moving towards FR0 in the foreign
network, handoff occurs at 1.16 min. MN starts receiving
packets at FR0 directly from PA through tunneling and
bypassing HA. At 4min, the MN moves from FR0 towards
FR1 via home network and handoff occurs at 5.34 and 7.96
min respectively. At FR1, the MN starts receiving packets
from PA. Finally, the MN returns to its home network. During Figure 4. Load analysis of different agents.
the entire movement, the MN always receives packets through
the PA. Fig. 3 shows the scenario of packet sending and
receiving by the CN and MN respectively. Packet receiving at
the MN is more because of excess control messages. Fig. 4
shows the load analysis of different agents. There are

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International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, Vol 2, No. 1, November 2009

Average delay FR0

Average delay FR1

2

Average delay Home agent

1 Handoff point
4
Average delay Pilot agent
3 5
Figure 7. Average delay of different agents.

Figure 5. Average throughput analysis of different agents.

sudden dips at about 1 min, 5 min and 8 min in MN and CN

lines in the graph showing packet drops during handoff. It
increases after handoff points 4 and 5 simultaneously as MN
reaches to FR1 as shown in Fig.5. So, throughput of the
agents increases depending on the presence of MN in the
corresponding network as shown in Fig.6. Fig. 7 shows the Handoff point
propagation delay of different agents. Fig. 8 shows the
average load analysis of CN and MN. Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 show
the frame transmission delay of different agent and CN, MN
respectively in MAC layer. Fig. 10 shows that MN changes its
point of attachment from home network and enters FR0, that’s
why signal strength changes abruptly. It is to be noted that
signal strength is always almost above the signal strength of Figure 8. Average load analysis of CN and MN.
CN. Fig. 11 shows the average propagation delay of CN and
MN. Fig. 12 shows the average load of CN and MN. Fig. 14
shows the average throughput of CN and MN. Fig. 13 and 15
shows the traffic analysis of different agents. There is traffic
burst for foreign routers and HA. This burst also absorbed by
the PA. This proves the stabilization and optimization of the
traffic in the PA.

Figure 9. Media access delay of different agents.

Handoff point

Figure 6. Throughput analysis of CN and MN.

Figure 10. Media access delay of CN and MN.

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International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering, Vol 2, No. 1, November 2009
Figure 11. Average delay of CN and MN.
Figure 12. Average load of CN and MN.
Figure 13. Traffic analysis of different agents.
Figure 14. Average throughput of CN and MN.
Figure 15. Average traffic analysis of different agents.
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V. CONCLUSION
Our analysis of different existing solutions for route
optimization and their comparative study reveals that none of
the solutions can provide all the potential benefits of route
optimization. Some of the solutions propose secure and safe
packet transfer but can not overcome high handoff latency.
Some of the solutions propose low handoff latency and low
signaling overhead but without enough security. On the other
hand, our novel scheme effectively solves the triangular
routing problem without sacrificing performance,
transparency and simplicity by unifying the flow of binding
updates through the pilot agent. From the simulation and
analysis, it is seen that our proposed PA based scheme
stabilizes and optimizes mobile IP protocol with improved
handoff latency.
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