Resource Management in Converged Optical and Millimeter Wave Radio Networks: A Review

Three convergent processes are likely to shape the future of the internet beyond-5G: The convergence of optical and millimeter wave radio networks to boost mobile internet capacity, the convergence of machine learning solutions and communication technologies, and the convergence of virtualized and programmable network management mechanisms towards fully integrated autonomic network resource management. The integration of network virtualization technologies creates the incentive to customize and dynamically manage the resources of a network, making network functions, and storage capabilities at the edge key resources similar to the available bandwidth in network communication channels. Aiming to understand the relationship between resource management, virtualization, and the dense 5G access and fronthaul with an emphasis on converged radio and optical communications, this article presents a review of how resource management solutions have dealt with optimizing millimeter wave radio and optical resources from an autonomic network management perspective. A research agenda is also proposed by identifying current state-of-the-art solutions and the need to shift all the convergent issues towards building an advanced resource management mechanism for beyond-5G

Software Defined Applications in Cellular and Optical Networks

abstract: Small wireless cells have the potential to overcome bottlenecks in wireless access through the sharing of spectrum resources. A novel access backhaul network architecture based on a Smart Gateway (Sm-GW) between the small cell base stations, e.g., LTE eNBs, and the conventional backhaul gateways, e.g., LTE Servicing/Packet Gateways (S/P-GWs) has been introduced to address the bottleneck. The Sm-GW flexibly schedules uplink transmissions for the eNBs. Based on software defined networking (SDN) a management mechanism that allows multiple operator to flexibly inter-operate via multiple Sm-GWs with a multitude of small cells has been proposed. This dissertation also comprehensively survey the studies that examine the SDN paradigm in optical networks. Along with the PHY functional split improvements, the performance of Distributed Converged Cable Access Platform (DCCAP) in the cable architectures especially for the Remote-PHY and Remote-MACPHY nodes has been evaluated. In the PHY functional split, in addition to the re-use of infrastructure with a common FFT module for multiple technologies, a novel cross functional split interaction to cache the repetitive QAM symbols across time at the remote node to reduce the transmission rate requirement of the fronthaul link has been proposed.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

Design and Analysis of Green Mission-Critical Fiber-Wireless Broadband Access Networks

In recent years, the ever-increasing environmental friendliness concern has made energy efficiency in telecom networks as an important theme in their operations. Meanwhile, mission-critical (MC) services and systems (such as healthcare, police, and firefighting) have been acquiring special attention from telecom designers and operators. The currently deployed MC network technologies are indigent in terms of bandwidth capacity, and thus they are not able to support the emerging MC multimedia applications. Therefore in this thesis, we first explore the possibility of provisioning the MC services over the integration of fiber-wireless (FiWi) technologies, which has been considered as a promising candidate for the deployment of high-speed and mobile broadband access networks. We then investigate the energy efficiency problem in the FiWi integration, which consists of WiMAX in the wireless plane, and of Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) - the most popular variant of the next-generation PON (NG-PON) technology, in the optical plane. In WiMAX, the energy saving protocol has been extensively investigated and standardized. Conversely, it has been recently studied in NG-PON, which currently consumes the least power among all the high-speed access networks. However, NG-PON has notably matured in the past few years and is envisioned to massively evolve in the near future. This trend will increase the power requirements of NG-PON and make it no longer coveted. Therefore we address the energy efficiency problem in NG-PON. For each of our contributions, we conduct extensive simulations to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed solutions

Medium-transparent MAC protocols for converged optical wireless networks

In order to address the explosive demand for high-capacity and omnipresent wireless access, modern cell-based wireless networks are slowly adopting two major solution roadmaps. The first is the employment of small-cell formations in order to increase the overall spectral efficiency, whereas the second is the employment of higher frequency bands, such as the mm-wave 60GHz band, that offers vast amounts of bandwidth. Depending on the specific application, the above solutions inevitably require the installation and operational management of large amounts of Base Stations (BSs) or Access Points (APs), which ultimately diminishes the overall cost-effectiveness of the architecture. In order to reduce the system cost, Radio over Fiber (RoF) technology has been put forward as an ideal candidate solution, due to the fact that it provides functionally simple antenna units, often termed as Remote Antenna Units (RAUs) that are interconnected to a central managing entity, termed as the Central Office (CO), via an optical fiber. Although extensive research efforts have been dedicated to the development of the physical layer aspects regarding RoF technologies, such as CO/RAU physical layer design and radio signal transport techniques over fiber, very limited efforts have con-centrated on upper layer and resource management issues. In this dissertation, we are concerned with access control and resource management of RoF-based mm-wave network architectures targeting the exploitation of the dual medium and its centralized control properties in order to perform optimal optical/wireless/time resource allocation. In this dissertation, we propose a Medium-Transparent MAC (MT-MAC) protocol that concurrently administers the optical and wireless resources of a 60GHz RoF based network, seamlessly connecting the CO to the wireless terminals through minimal RAU intervention. In this way, the MT-MAC protocol forms extended reach 60GHz WLAN networks offering connectivity amongst wireless devices that are attached to the same or different RAUs under both Line of Sight (LOS) and non LOS conditions. The notion of medium-transparency relies on two parallel contention periods, the first in the optical domain and the second in the wireless frequency and time domains, with nested dataframe structures. The MT-MAC operation is based on a proposed RAU design that allows for wavelength selectivity functions, thus being compatible with completely passive optical distribution network implementations that are predominately used by telecom operators today. Two variants of the MT-MAC protocol are considered. The first offers dynamic wavelength allocation with fixed time windows, whereas the second targets fairness-sensitive applications by offering dynamic wavelength allocation with dynamic transmission opportunity window sizes, based on the number of active clients connected at each RAU. Both variants of the protocol are evaluated by both simulation and analytical means. For the latter part, this thesis introduces two analytical models for calculating saturation throughput and non-saturation packet delay for the converged MT-MAC protocol. Finally, this thesis presents an extensive study regarding the network planning and formation of 60GHz Gigabit WLAN networks when the latter are deployed over existing Passive Optical Network (PON) infrastructures. Three possible architectures where studied: i) the RoF approach, ii) the Radio & Fiber approach and iii) the hybrid RoF-plus-R&F approach that combines the properties of both the aforementioned architectures. During the elaboration of this thesis, one major key conclusion has been extracted. The work proposed in this thesis considers that there is a fundamental requirement for implementing new converged optical/wireless MAC protocols, that have the complete overview of both available resources in order to effectively administer the hybrid Radio-over-Fiber networks.A fin de atender la demanda explosiva de alta capacidad y acceso inalámbrico omnipresente, las redes inalámbricas basadas en celdas están poco a poco adoptando dos principales guías de solución. La primera es el empleo de formaciones de celdas pequeñas con el fin de aumentar la eficiencia espectral global, mientras que la segunda es el empleo de bandas de frecuencia superior, como la banda de 60GHz, la cual ofrece una gran cantidad de ancho de banda. Dependiendo de la aplicación en específico, las soluciones anteriores inevitable-mente requieren de una instalación y una gestión operativa de grandes cantidades de Estaciones Base o Puntos de Acceso, que en última instancia disminuye la rentabilidad de la arquitectura. Para reducir el coste, la tecnología radioeléctrica por fibra (RoF) se presenta como una solución ideal debido al hecho de que proporciona unidades de antenas de sim-ple funcionamiento, a menudo denominadas Unidades de Antenas Remotas (RAUs), las cuales están interconectadas a una entidad central de gestión, denominada Oficina Central (CO), a través de la fibra óptica. A pesar de que se han dedicado muchos esfuerzos de investigación al desarrollo de varios aspectos de las capas física con respecto a las tecnologías RoF, muy pocos esfuerzos se han concentrado en la capa superior y cuestiones de gestión de recursos. En esta tesis, nos enfocando en el control de acceso y gestión de recursos de arquitecturas RoF y comunicaciones milimétricas, con el fin de aprovechar y explotar el medio dual y las propiedades para realizar una óptima asignación de los recursos ópticos, inalámbricos y temporales. Nosotros proponemos un protocolo Transparente al Medio MAC (MT-MAC) que simultáneamente administre los recursos ópticos e inalámbricos de una red RoF a 60GHz, conectando a la perfección el CO a los terminales inalámbricos a través de una mínima intervención RAU. El protocolo MT-MAC forma unas redes WLAN 60GHz de alcance extendido, ofreciendo así conectividad entre los dispositivos inalámbricos que están conectados al mismo o diferentes RAUs bajo con o sin Línea de Vista (condiciones LOS o NLOS) respectivamente. La noción de transparencia al medio se basa en dos períodos de contención para-lelos, el primero en el dominio óptico y el segundo en la frecuencia inalámbrica y dominio del tiempo, con estructuras de datos anidados. La operación MT-MAC se basa en proponer un diseño RAU que permita la selectividad de funciones de longitud de onda. Dos variantes del protocolo MT- MAC son considerados; el primer ofrece asignación de longitud de onda dinámica con ventanas de tiempo fijo, mientras que la segunda tiene como objetivo entornos de aplicaciones sensibles ofreciendo asignación de longitud de onda con tamaño de ventana de oportunidad de transmisión dinámico, basado en el número de clientes conectados en cada RAU. Ambas variantes del protocolo están evaluadas tanto por medios analíticos como de simulación. En la segunda parte, esta tesis introduce dos modelos analíticos para calcular el rendimiento de saturación y no saturación del retardo de paquetes para el protocolo MT-MAC convergente. Finalmente, esta tesis presenta un extenso estudio de la planificación de red y la formación de redes 60GHz Gigabit WLAN cuando esta se encuentra desplegada sobre las ya existente infraestructuras de Redes Ópticas Pasivas (PONs). Tres posibles arquitecturas han sido estudiadas: i) el enfoque RoF, ii) el enfoque Radio y Fibra , y iii) el enfoque híbrido, RoF más R&F el cual combina las propiedades de ambas arquitecturas anteriormente mencionadas. Durante la elaboración de esta tesis, se ha extraído una importante conclusión: hay un requerimiento fundamental para implementar nuevos protocolos ópticos/inalámbricos convergentes, que tengan una completa visión de ambos recursos disponibles para poder administrar efectivamente las redes de tecnología RoF.Postprint (published version

Review on Radio Resource Allocation Optimization in LTE/LTE-Advanced using Game Theory

Recently, there has been a growing trend toward ap-plying game theory (GT) to various engineering fields in order to solve optimization problems with different competing entities/con-tributors/players. Researches in the fourth generation (4G) wireless network field also exploited this advanced theory to overcome long term evolution (LTE) challenges such as resource allocation, which is one of the most important research topics. In fact, an efficient de-sign of resource allocation schemes is the key to higher performance. However, the standard does not specify the optimization approach to execute the radio resource management and therefore it was left open for studies. This paper presents a survey of the existing game theory based solution for 4G-LTE radio resource allocation problem and its optimization