5g new radio performance assessment

Abstract. Each decade, a new generation of wireless cellular technology presents a step-change in what cellular wireless systems can do compared to the previous generation. It is the beginning of new wireless technology in mobile phone networks called 5th Generation Mobile Phone Network (5G), a robust technology from its predecessors. 5G New Radio (5G NR) is the first step in adapting the 5G wireless technology to the existing cellular infrastructure. This thesis analyzes the 5G NR performance as part of the 5G test network (5GTN) deployed at the University of Oulu. The architecture of the 5GTN is a so-called non- standalone (NSA) network where the 4G Long-Term Evolution (4G-LTE) cellular network provides the control plane of the network. The performance of the 5G NR was obtained by measuring a few primary Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and data transmission measurements to observe the mobile network strength. This thesis first described the importance of 5G and its history, the deployment timeline, the basic architecture of adaption and synchronization process with the current mobile network, and future possibilities. After that, the main KPI parameters, deployed software, and the test case environment are described, and the 5GTN architecture is also covered. Later, the test results are presented, and lastly, a brief discussion of the outcome of the test result is provided. Finally, a comparison between the 5G NR BTS cells within the test environment network is provided. Performance measurements have been performed at the Linnanmaa campus of the University of Oulu and the surrounding premises under the 5GTN, the broadest open- access test network of 5G. The test cases were created during the time of field testing. The measurement key performance indicators (KPIs) have been carefully chosen for these test case scenarios, where the recorded result’s output were analyzed and represented clearly through this study. Data throughput tests have been performed parallelly during the field testing within the network to assess the 5G performance in terms of data rate. Along with the KPI parameter and throughput tests, there is a clear indication that 5G NR offers the fastest connection as part of the existing mobile network infrastructure

An Innovative RAN Architecture for Emerging Heterogeneous Networks: The Road to the 5G Era

The global demand for mobile-broadband data services has experienced phenomenal growth over the last few years, driven by the rapid proliferation of smart devices such as smartphones and tablets. This growth is expected to continue unabated as mobile data traffic is predicted to grow anywhere from 20 to 50 times over the next 5 years. Exacerbating the problem is that such unprecedented surge in smartphones usage, which is characterized by frequent short on/off connections and mobility, generates heavy signaling traffic load in the network signaling storms . This consumes a disproportion amount of network resources, compromising network throughput and efficiency, and in extreme cases can cause the Third-Generation (3G) or 4G (long-term evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A)) cellular networks to crash. As the conventional approaches of improving the spectral efficiency and/or allocation additional spectrum are fast approaching their theoretical limits, there is a growing consensus that current 3G and 4G (LTE/LTE-A) cellular radio access technologies (RATs) won\u27t be able to meet the anticipated growth in mobile traffic demand. To address these challenges, the wireless industry and standardization bodies have initiated a roadmap for transition from 4G to 5G cellular technology with a key objective to increase capacity by 1000Ã? by 2020 . Even though the technology hasn\u27t been invented yet, the hype around 5G networks has begun to bubble. The emerging consensus is that 5G is not a single technology, but rather a synergistic collection of interworking technical innovations and solutions that collectively address the challenge of traffic growth. The core emerging ingredients that are widely considered the key enabling technologies to realize the envisioned 5G era, listed in the order of importance, are: 1) Heterogeneous networks (HetNets); 2) flexible backhauling; 3) efficient traffic offload techniques; and 4) Self Organizing Networks (SONs). The anticipated solutions delivered by efficient interworking/ integration of these enabling technologies are not simply about throwing more resources and /or spectrum at the challenge. The envisioned solution, however, requires radically different cellular RAN and mobile core architectures that efficiently and cost-effectively deploy and manage radio resources as well as offload mobile traffic from the overloaded core network. The main objective of this thesis is to address the key techno-economics challenges facing the transition from current Fourth-Generation (4G) cellular technology to the 5G era in the context of proposing a novel high-risk revolutionary direction to the design and implementation of the envisioned 5G cellular networks. The ultimate goal is to explore the potential and viability of cost-effectively implementing the 1000x capacity challenge while continuing to provide adequate mobile broadband experience to users. Specifically, this work proposes and devises a novel PON-based HetNet mobile backhaul RAN architecture that: 1) holistically addresses the key techno-economics hurdles facing the implementation of the envisioned 5G cellular technology, specifically, the backhauling and signaling challenges; and 2) enables, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, the support of efficient ground-breaking mobile data and signaling offload techniques, which significantly enhance the performance of both the HetNet-based RAN and LTE-A\u27s core network (Evolved Packet Core (EPC) per 3GPP standard), ensure that core network equipment is used more productively, and moderate the evolving 5G\u27s signaling growth and optimize its impact. To address the backhauling challenge, we propose a cost-effective fiber-based small cell backhaul infrastructure, which leverages existing fibered and powered facilities associated with a PON-based fiber-to-the-Node/Home (FTTN/FTTH)) residential access network. Due to the sharing of existing valuable fiber assets, the proposed PON-based backhaul architecture, in which the small cells are collocated with existing FTTN remote terminals (optical network units (ONUs)), is much more economical than conventional point-to-point (PTP) fiber backhaul designs. A fully distributed ring-based EPON architecture is utilized here as the fiber-based HetNet backhaul. The techno-economics merits of utilizing the proposed PON-based FTTx access HetNet RAN architecture versus that of traditional 4G LTE-A\u27s RAN will be thoroughly examined and quantified. Specifically, we quantify the techno-economics merits of the proposed PON-based HetNet backhaul by comparing its performance versus that of a conventional fiber-based PTP backhaul architecture as a benchmark. It is shown that the purposely selected ring-based PON architecture along with the supporting distributed control plane enable the proposed PON-based FTTx RAN architecture to support several key salient networking features that collectively significantly enhance the overall performance of both the HetNet-based RAN and 4G LTE-A\u27s core (EPC) compared to that of the typical fiber-based PTP backhaul architecture in terms of handoff capability, signaling overhead, overall network throughput and latency, and QoS support. It will also been shown that the proposed HetNet-based RAN architecture is not only capable of providing the typical macro-cell offloading gain (RAN gain) but also can provide ground-breaking EPC offloading gain. The simulation results indicate that the overall capacity of the proposed HetNet scales with the number of deployed small cells, thanks to LTE-A\u27s advanced interference management techniques. For example, if there are 10 deployed outdoor small cells for every macrocell in the network, then the overall capacity will be approximately 10-11x capacity gain over a macro-only network. To reach the 1000x capacity goal, numerous small cells including 3G, 4G, and WiFi (femtos, picos, metros, relays, remote radio heads, distributed antenna systems) need to be deployed indoors and outdoors, at all possible venues (residences and enterprises)

The Future of LTE: The Femtocells perspective

The Femtocell is one of the constituents of the LTE-Advanced technology components. It is categorized under the heterogeneous network's small cell concepts. In order to meet one of the most essential desires of mobile network - better coverage and enhanced system capacity, femtocell has offered and will offer most definitely a comprehensive solution to the service providers and subscribers alike. A detail presentation of the past, the present and the future of the femtocell technology has been studied and considered from the perspective of the LTE straight to LTE-Advanced; and tailored to the variants existence of the femto-cellular architecture. The much benefits of the femtocells does leave some points of thought for challenges in the existing deployments; to the users', a concern for privacy and confidentiality; and to the operators, most importantly, cost reduction, better coverage and security. That did not leave out the quest to have improved system deployment by considering issues like Interferences, Mobility and Handover, Backhauling, Self-Organizing Networks, Synchronization and so on. The aim of this thesis is to examine in a top-down approach the femtocells as an important component of the developing LTE-Advanced Technology, with essential projection into the future of the femto-cellular technology and what the future holds for its deployment for operators. To loathe it or to like it! The global success of the femtocells will determine its future at best

Impact of Femtocell backhaul limitation on performance of Macro-Femto HetNet

This thesis is a techno-economical study which focuses on addressing the exponentially rising data capacity demand through network densification. The study is based on the two popular deployment strategies; Macrocellular networks and Macro-Femto heterogeneous networks, deployed in a suburban type environment with modern houses. The main aim of the dissertation is to investigate the impact of network densification on capacity, energy- and cost-efficiency of the network, while considering different femtocell backhaul connectivity limitations. The network performance is evaluated for both indoor and outdoor scenarios. A comparative analysis between the macrocellular and macro-femto network is done by increasing the density of the macrocells, femtocells and the operating frequency spectrum. The capacity is enhanced by increasing the density of the cell sites in the network but operators want to generate profit and want to adopt a cost effective solution to cater the problems. The results show that increasing the density of low-cost, low-powered femtocell access points (FAPs) in the network can solve the problem of 1000x future data capacity demand while keeping the CAPEX and OPEX of the network relatively lower than legacy pure macrocellular deployments. The deployment of the FAPs both in indoor and outdoor environments enhances the network capacity. This study helped in providing results, understanding and insight of both technical and techno-economical aspects of different mobile network deployment and densification solutions. Furthermore, the outcome of the thesis will give some guidelines for network vendors and mobile operators in evolving their network in future

5G Outlook – Innovations and Applications

5G Outlook - Innovations and Applications is a collection of the recent research and development in the area of the Fifth Generation Mobile Technology (5G), the future of wireless communications. Plenty of novel ideas and knowledge of the 5G are presented in this book as well as divers applications from health science to business modeling. The authors of different chapters contributed from various countries and organizations. The chapters have also been presented at the 5th IEEE 5G Summit held in Aalborg on July 1, 2016. The book starts with a comprehensive introduction on 5G and its need and requirement. Then millimeter waves as a promising spectrum to 5G technology is discussed. The book continues with the novel and inspiring ideas for the future wireless communication usage and network. Further, some technical issues in signal processing and network design for 5G are presented. Finally, the book ends up with different applications of 5G in distinct areas. Topics widely covered in this book are: • 5G technology from past to present to the future• Millimeter- waves and their characteristics• Signal processing and network design issues for 5G• Applications, business modeling and several novel ideas for the future of 5

Spectral-energy efficiency trade-off for next-generation wireless communication systems

The data traffic in cellular networks has had and will experience a rapid exponential rise. Therefore, it is essential to innovate a new cellular architecture with advanced wireless technologies that can offer more capacity and enhanced spectral efficiency to manage the exponential data traffic growth. Managing such mass data traffic, however, brings up another challenge of increasing energy consumption. This is because it contributes into a growing fraction of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission which is a global concern today due to its negative impact on the environment. This has resulted in creating a new paradigm shift towards both spectral and energy efficient orientated design for the next-generation wireless access networks. Acquiring both improved energy efficiency and spectral efficiency has, nonetheless, shown to be a difficult goal to achieve as it seems improving one is at the detriment to the other. Therefore, the trade-off between the spectral and energy efficiency is of paramount importance to assess the energy consumption in a wireless communication system required to attain a specific spectral efficiency. This thesis looks into this problem. It studies the spectral-energy efficiency tradeoff for some of the emerging wireless communication technologies which are seen as potential candidates for the fifth generation (5G) mobile cellular system. The focus is on the orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), mobile femtocell (MFemtocell), cognitive radio (CR), and the spatial modulation (SM). Firstly, the energy-efficient resource allocation scheme for multi-user OFDMA (MU-OFDMA) system is studied. The spectral-energy efficiency trade-off is analysed under the constraint of maintaining the fairness among users. The energy-efficient optimisation problem has been formulated as integer fractional programming. We then apply an iterative method to simplify the problem to an integer linear programming (ILP) problem. Secondly, the spectral and energy efficiency for a cellular system with MFemtocell deployment is investigated using different resource partitioning schemes. Femtocells are low range, low power base stations (BSs) that improve the coverage inside a home or office building. MFemtocell adopts the femtocell solution to be deployed in public transport and emergency vehicles. Closed-form expressions for the relationships between the spectral and energy efficiency are derived for a single-user (SU) MFemtocell network. We also study the spectral efficiency for MU-MFemtocells with two opportunistic scheduling schemes. Thirdly, the spectral-energy efficiency trade-off for CR networks is analysed at both SU and MU CR systems against varying signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values. CR is an innovative radio device that aims to utilise the spectrum more efficiently by opportunistically exploiting underutilised licensed spectrum. For the SU system, we study the required energy to achieve a specific spectral efficiency for a CR channel under two different types of power constraints in different fading environments. In this scenario, interference constraint at the primary receiver (PR) is also considered to protect the PR from harmful interference. At the system level, we study the spectral and energy efficiency for a CR network that shares the spectrum with an indoor network. Adopting the extreme-value theory, we are able to derive the average spectral efficiency of the CR network. Finally, we propose two innovative schemes to enhance the capability of (SM). SM is a recently developed technique that is employed for a low complexity multipleinput multiple-output (MIMO) transmission. The first scheme can be applied for SU MIMO (SU-MIMO) to offer more degrees of freedom than SM. Whereas the second scheme introduces a transmission structure by which the SM is adopted into a downlink MU-MIMO system. Unlike SM, both proposed schemes do not involve any restriction into the number of transmit antennas when transmitting signals. The spectral-energy efficiency trade-off for the MU-SM in the massive MIMO system is studied. In this context, we develop an iterative energy-efficient water-filling algorithm to optimises the transmit power and achieve the maximum energy efficiency for a given spectral efficiency. In summary, the research presented in this thesis reveals mathematical tools to analysis the spectral and energy efficiency for wireless communications technologies. It also offers insight to solve optimisation problems that belong to a class of problems with objectives of enhancing the energy efficiency

Radio network management in cognitive LTE-Femtocell Systems

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.There is a strong uptake of femtocell deployment as small cell application platforms in the upcoming LTE networks. In such two-tier networks of LTEfemtocell base stations, a large portion of the assigned spectrum is used sporadically leading to underutilisation of valuable frequency resources. Novel spectrum access techniques are necessary to solve these current spectrum inefficiency problems. Therefore, spectrum management solutions should have the features to improve spectrum access in both temporal and spatial manner. Cognitive Radio (CR) with the Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) is considered to be the key technology in this research in order to increase the spectrum efficiency. This is an effective solution to allow a group of Secondary Users (SUs) to share the radio spectrum initially allocated to the Primary User (PUs) at no interference. The core aim of this thesis is to develop new cognitive LTE-femtocell systems that offer a 4G vision, to facilitate the radio network management in order to increase the network capacity and further improve spectrum access probabilities. In this thesis, a new spectrum management model for cognitive radio networks is considered to enable a seamless integration of multi-access technology with existing networks. This involves the design of efficient resource allocation algorithms that are able to respond to the rapid changes in the dynamic wireless environment and primary users activities. Throughout this thesis a variety of network upgraded functions are developed using application simulation scenarios. Therefore, the proposed algorithms, mechanisms, methods, and system models are not restricted in the considered networks, but rather have a wider applicability to be used in other technologies. This thesis mainly investigates three aspects of research issues relating to the efficient management of cognitive networks: First, novel spectrum resource management modules are proposed to maximise the spectrum access by rapidly detecting the available transmission opportunities. Secondly, a developed pilot power controlling algorithm is introduced to minimise the power consumption by considering mobile position and application requirements. Also, there is investigation on the impact of deploying different numbers of femtocell base stations in LTE domain to identify the optimum cell size for future networks. Finally, a novel call admission control mechanism for mobility management is proposed to support seamless handover between LTE and femtocell domains. This is performed by assigning high speed mobile users to the LTE system to avoid unnecessary handovers. The proposed solutions were examined by simulation and numerical analysis to show the strength of cognitive femtocell deployment for the required applications. The results show that the new system design based on cognitive radio configuration enable an efficient resource management in terms of spectrum allocation, adaptive pilot power control, and mobile handover. The proposed framework and algorithms offer a novel spectrum management for self organised LTE-femtocell architecture. Eventually, this research shows that certain architectures fulfilling spectrum management requirements are implementable in practice and display good performance in dynamic wireless environments which recommends the consideration of CR systems in LTE and femtocell networks