LEVERAGING OPENAIRINTERFACE AND SOFTWARE DEFINED RADIO TO ESTABLISH A LOW-COST 5G NON-STANDALONE ARCHITECTURE

Includes Supplementary MaterialCommercial cellular service providers are at the forefront of the paradigm shift from 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) to 5G New Radio (NR). The increase in throughput, provisioning of ultra-low latency, and greater reliability of 5G enable potential uses that no other wireless communication could support. The Department of Defense (DOD) is interested in 5G NR technologies, but the implementation of the architecture can be lengthy and costly. This capstone configured a 4G LTE network and a 5G non-standalone network using OpenAirInterface and software defined radios (SDRs). Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) cards were configured and introduced to user equipment and attached to the 4G LTE network. A gNodeB (gNB) was added to the 4G LTE network to establish the 5G non-standalone (NSA) network architecture (3GPP Option 3). The testbed developed in this research was able to connect the core to a commercial internet service provider and browse the internet using third-party applications. Our analysis educates future researchers on the challenges and lessons learned when implementing the OpenAirInterface 4G LTE and 5G NSA networks. This work also provides a better understanding of 4G LTE and 5G NSA OpenAirInterface software usability, flexibility, and scalability for potential use cases for the DOD.Chief Petty Officer, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

ENHANCING MARITIME DOMAIN AWARENESS (MDA) THROUGH THE DEPLOYMENT OF INTELLIGENT AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS (IAS) USING COMMERCIAL 5G TECHNOLOGY

The United States Navy has been the dominate force of the sea in the last half century, but advancements in technology have given other nations the ability to narrow the gap and, in some cases, threaten U.S. superiority. The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard are the triad forces for maritime domain protection. One area of potential vulnerability is in the littoral environment. However, emerging commercial technologies, like 5G, can expand the footprint of systems and capabilities within that environment for naval services to utilize. The private sector already has the lead in developing 5G state-of-the-art resources, which has enabled manned and unmanned systems to accomplish more tasks. One long-standing obstacle for the naval services to implement commercially available systems was the Department of Defense’s desire to be the owner and operator of any systems it employed. One benefit of utilizing existing commercial systems in naval operations would be to enhance capabilities without developing a completely new system. This thesis explores current and projected abilities of a commercial 5G technology for employment by U.S. naval services. Testing of 5G millimeter wave was conducted for this research. This thesis also examines a theorized new system that integrates commercial systems to satisfy naval requirements.Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

A COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF INTERNET OF THINGS WAVEFORMS FOR A DOD LOW EARTH ORBIT CUBESAT MESH NETWORK

The Department of Defense (DOD) requires the military to provide command and control during missions in locations where terrestrial communications infrastructure is unreliable or unavailable, which results in a high reliance on satellite communications (SATCOM). This is problematic because they use and consume more digital data in the operational environment. The DOD has several forms of data capable of meeting Internet of Things (IoT) transmission parameters that could be diversified onto an IoT network. This research assesses the potential for an IoT satellite constellation in Low Earth Orbit to provide an alternative, space-based communication platform to military units while offering increased overall SATCOM capacity and resiliency. This research explores alternative IoT waveforms and compatible transceivers in place of LoRaWAN for the NPS CENETIX Ortbial-1 CubeSat. The study uses a descriptive comparative research approach to simultaneously assess several variables. Five alternative waveforms—Sigfox, NB-IoT, LTE-M, Wi-sun, and Ingenu—are evaluated. NB-IoT, LTE-M, and Ingenu meet the threshold to be feasible alternatives to replace the LoRaWAN waveform in the Orbital-1 CubeSat. Six potential IoT transceivers are assessed as replacements. Two transceivers for the NB-IoT and LTE-M IoT waveforms and one transceiver from U-blox for the Ingenu waveform are assessed as compliant.Lieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Downlink channel spatial covariance estimation in realistic FDD massive MIMO systems

The knowledge of the downlink (DL) channel spatial covariance matrix at the BS is of fundamental importance for large-scale array systems operating in frequency division duplexing (FDD) mode. In particular, this knowledge plays a key role in the DL channel state information (CSI) acquisition. In the massive MIMO regime, traditional schemes based on DL pilots are severely limited by the covariance feedback and the DL training overhead. To overcome this problem, many authors have proposed to obtain an estimate of the DL spatial covariance based on uplink (UL) measurements. However, many of these approaches rely on simple channel models, and they are difficult to extend to more complex models that take into account important effects of propagation in 3D environments and of dual-polarized antenna arrays. In this study we propose a novel technique that takes into account the aforementioned effects, in compliance with the requirements of modern 4G and 5G system designs. Numerical simulations show the effectiveness of our approach.Comment: [v2] is the version accepted at GlobalSIP 2018. Only minor changes mainly in the introductio

DETECTION OF SYNTHETIC ANOMALIES ON AN EXPERIMENTALLY GENERATED 5G DATA SET USING CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORKS

The research microgrid currently deployed at Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar, is leveraging Verizon’s Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G communications network to provide connectivity between dispersed energy assets and the energy and water operations center (EWOC). Due to its anchor to the Verizon 4G/LTE core, the NSA network does not provide technological avenues for cyber anomaly detection. In this research, we developed a traffic anomaly detection model using supervised machine learning for the energy communication infrastructure at Miramar. We developed a preliminary cyber anomaly detection platform using a convolutional neural network (CNN). We experimentally generated a benign 5G data set using the AT&T 5G cellular tower at the NPS SLAMR facility. We injected synthetic anomalies within the data set to test the CNN and its effectiveness at classifying packets as anomalous or benign. Data sets with varying amounts of anomalous data, ranging from 10% to 50%, were created. Accuracy, precision, and recall were used as performance metrics. Our experiments, conducted with Python and TensorFlow, showed that while the CNN did not perform its best on the data sets generated, it has the potential to work well with a more balanced data set that is large enough to host more anomalous traffic.ONRLieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Detection Of VulnerabilitIies in 5G Femtocell Firmware Using Static Analysis Tools

The purpose of this study is to support fifth generation (5G) wireless network security by identifying vulnerabilities in 5G femtocell firmware. It addresses the problem of whether 5G femtocells are shipped to customers with firmware that contains vulnerabilities. This is a subproblem of supply chain security. The problem is significant because exploitation of latent vulnerabilities in the firmware of 5G network access points (such as femtocells) could compromise the security of network communications. This study employs a design science research methodology consisting of a quasi-experiment which applies static analysis tools to 5G femtocell firmware samples. It seeks to answer the research question “can security vulnerabilities in 5G femtocell firmware be detected by static analysis tools?”. The presence of vulnerabilities would imply that the firmware is insecure. This question directly supports the purpose of this research. The quasi-experiment applied four commercially available static analysis security tools to five 5G femtocell firmware samples harvested from used 5G equipment. The static analysis tools were able to identify several known CVEs in each firmware sample. To lessen the chances of reporting false positives, each CVE reported by the tools was assigned a “confidence rating” corresponding to the number of tools reporting the presence of that CVE. The study found several CVEs in each firmware sample with confidence ratings of 1.0 (i.e., every tool in the study had reported the presence of that CVE). Further, many of these CVEs were publicly documented prior to the deployment of the firmware into the field. Because of these findings, the study was able to answer the research question in the affirmative

Powering remote area base stations by renewable energy

Abstract. The number of cellular subscriptions have seen a tremendous growth in the last decade and to provide connectivity for everyone has led to growth in number of base stations (BSs). BSs installed at places where reliable grid power is not available has increased and will continue to increase in the coming years to connect everybody on the globe. Energy and cost efficiency is becoming a criterion of ever increasing importance in the information and communication technology sector. Energy and cost efficiency is especially important for remote areas where providing mobile communication services is inhibited by the economic drawback of low revenue potential. In this thesis, we discuss the role of BS power consumption in the cellular networks in order to investigate approaches to lower the overall power consumption of the cellular network. The thesis covers structure of a BS and the power consumption of its components. Previous works and research approaches proposed to reduce the power consumption of BSs and to what extent they can lower the power requirement are discussed. Reducing the BS power consumption will reduce the operating cost for the networks and ease the deployment of BSs in remote areas. Also discussed are the two key technical features of 5th generation cellular access networks (beam forming through massive multiple input multiple output antenna systems and ultra-lean system design) that are promising in terms of reducing the BS power consumption. Furthermore, we discuss viable sources of renewable energy that can be used to power BSs in the remote areas. An overview of the renewable energy resources that can be used for this purpose (solar and wind energy) and their availability in different regions is discussed. The setups for harnessing solar and wind energy to generate power are presented in this thesis. For different cases requirements of wind and solar energy systems to power the BSs are calculated. Results show that while solar energy alone is a feasible option in regions at low latitude, small solar energy systems of 4–7 kW rated output power can easily power BS during the entire year. But in regions of high latitude using solar energy alone cannot meet the BS power requirement as there are long durations of very low or negligible solar irradiation levels. Furthermore, the energy produced by small wind energy setups at different wind speeds is investigated for the purpose of powering BSs. We discuss the range of windspeed levels for which the energy produced is sufficient to power a BS. Areas with average windspeeds of 5–8 m/s are very suitable for using wind energy as a source of power for BSs. Hybrid energy systems to power BSs and also a few energy storage options to store excess power are also discussed in this thesis

Increasing Spectrum for Broadband: What Are The Options?

The growth of wireless broadband is a bright spot in the U.S. economy, but a shortage of flexibly licensed spectrum rights could put a crimp on this expansion. Freeing up spectrum from other uses would allow greater expansion of wireless broadband and would bring substantial gains—likely in the hundreds of billions of dollars—for U.S. consumers, businesses, and the federal treasury. ... U.S. experience suggests that it takes at least six years, and possibly over a decade, to complete any large-scale reallocation of spectrum. Thus, for policymakers, the ?projected? need is actually here today. This paper makes three proposals to increase spectrum available for wireless broadband under a flexibly licensed, market-based regime.

Millimetre wave frequency band as a candidate spectrum for 5G network architecture : a survey

In order to meet the huge growth in global mobile data traffic in 2020 and beyond, the development of the 5th Generation (5G) system is required as the current 4G system is expected to fall short of the provision needed for such growth. 5G is anticipated to use a higher carrier frequency in the millimetre wave (mm-wave) band, within the 20 to 90 GHz, due to the availability of a vast amount of unexploited bandwidth. It is a revolutionary step to use these bands because of their different propagation characteristics, severe atmospheric attenuation, and hardware constraints. In this paper, we carry out a survey of 5G research contributions and proposed design architectures based on mm-wave communications. We present and discuss the use of mm-wave as indoor and outdoor mobile access, as a wireless backhaul solution, and as a key enabler for higher order sectorisation. Wireless standards such as IEE802.11ad, which are operating in mm-wave band have been presented. These standards have been designed for short range, ultra high data throughput systems in the 60 GHz band. Furthermore, this survey provides new insights regarding relevant and open issues in adopting mm-wave for 5G networks. This includes increased handoff rate and interference in Ultra-Dense Network (UDN), waveform consideration with higher spectral efficiency, and supporting spatial multiplexing in mm-wave line of sight. This survey also introduces a distributed base station architecture in mm-wave as an approach to address increased handoff rate in UDN, and to provide an alternative way for network densification in a time and cost effective manner