Smooth handover of active user traffic in mobile radio base stations

A mobile communication system for serving a plurality of user equipment (UEs) on the ground within a geographical service zone having an associated ingress zone and an associated egress zone comprising:

• a management node configured to:
• receive a registration request from an ingressing mobile base station when the ingressing mobile base station enters the ingress zone;
• send communication parameters associated with the geographical service zone to the ingressing mobile base station;
• receive a handover request from an egressing mobile base station when the egressing mobile base station enters the egress zone, wherein the handover request includes a list of UEs selected from the plurality of UEs;
• send the handover request to the ingressing mobile base station;
• receive a handover reply message from the ingressing mobile base station, the handover reply message including information associated with each of UEs in the list of UEs with which the ingressing mobile base station is capable of establishing communication;
• and
• send the handover reply message to the egressing mobile base station.

A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions encoded thereon, which when executed by a processor cause the processor to perform a method for handing over radio communication between a plurality of user equipment (UEs) on the ground, within a geographical service zone having an associated ingress zone and an egress zone, and an egressing mobile base station to an ingressing mobile base station, comprising:

• receiving, at a management node on the ground, a registration request from an ingressing mobile base station when the ingressing mobile base station enters the ingress zone;
• sending, from the management node, communication parameters associated with the geographical service zone to the ingressing mobile base station;
• receiving, at the management node, a handover request from an egressing mobile base station when the egressing mobile base station enters the egress zone, wherein the handover request includes a list of UEs selected from the plurality of UEs;
• sending, from the management node, a forwarding handover request to the ingressing mobile base station;
• receiving, at the management node, a handover reply message from the ingressing mobile base station, the handover reply message including information associated with each of the UEs in the list of UEs with which the ingressing mobile base station is capable of establishing communication;
• and
• sending, from the management node, the handover reply message to the egressing mobile base station.