Mobility Management in 5G-enabled Vehicular Networks: Models, Protocols, and Classification

Over the past few years, the next generation of vehicular networks is envisioned to play an essential part in autonomous driving, traffic management, and infotainment applications. The next generation of intelligent vehicular networks enabled by 5G systems will integrate various heterogeneous wireless techniques to enable time-sensitive services with guaranteed quality of service and ultimate bandwidth usage. However, to allow the dense diversity of wireless technologies, seamless and reliable wireless communication protocols need to be thoroughly investigated in vehicular networks environment. Henceforth, efficient mobility management protocols that mitigate the challenges of vehicles’ mobility is essential to support massive data loads throughout various applications. In this article, we review different mobility management protocols and their ability to address issues related to 5G-enabled vehicular networks within the related works. First, we provide a broad view of existing models of vehicular networks and their applicability to the next generation of wireless networks. Next, we propose a classification of several vehicular network models that suit the 5G wireless network, followed by a thorough discussion of the mobility management challenges in each of these network models that need to be addressed and then discuss each of their benefits and drawbacks accordingly.