Optimizing Handovers in Integrated 5G UAV Networks: A Core-RAN Co-location Approach

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) communication has emerged as a crucial solution to meet the growing demands for user access and diverse service scenarios, extending ground access capabilities. UAVs with both the core network and Radio Access Network (RAN) offer flexible networking capabilities but experience larger handover latency. This paper addresses these issues by proposing an innovative handover procedure. Our approach introduces two key innovations: a simplified handover procedure based on User Equipment (UE) context synchronization, and a virtual user scheme to mitigate service interruptions during handovers on the data plane. We conduct a comprehensive comparison with handover processes in commercial core networks to validate our proposed scheme. The results demonstrate that our solution effectively supports user handovers in UAV networks, achieving significantly lower handover latency while ensuring continuous service reachability.