2,609 research outputs found
Will SDN be part of 5G?
For many, this is no longer a valid question and the case is considered
settled with SDN/NFV (Software Defined Networking/Network Function
Virtualization) providing the inevitable innovation enablers solving many
outstanding management issues regarding 5G. However, given the monumental task
of softwarization of radio access network (RAN) while 5G is just around the
corner and some companies have started unveiling their 5G equipment already,
the concern is very realistic that we may only see some point solutions
involving SDN technology instead of a fully SDN-enabled RAN. This survey paper
identifies all important obstacles in the way and looks at the state of the art
of the relevant solutions. This survey is different from the previous surveys
on SDN-based RAN as it focuses on the salient problems and discusses solutions
proposed within and outside SDN literature. Our main focus is on fronthaul,
backward compatibility, supposedly disruptive nature of SDN deployment,
business cases and monetization of SDN related upgrades, latency of general
purpose processors (GPP), and additional security vulnerabilities,
softwarization brings along to the RAN. We have also provided a summary of the
architectural developments in SDN-based RAN landscape as not all work can be
covered under the focused issues. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on
the state of the art of SDN-based RAN and clearly points out the gaps in the
technology.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figure
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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
Traffic-Driven Energy Efficient Operational Mechanisms in Cellular Access Networks
Recent explosive growth in mobile data traffic is increasing energy consumption in cellular networks at an incredible rate. Moreover, as a direct result of the conventional static network provisioning approach, a significant amount of electrical energy is being wasted in the existing networks. Therefore, in recent time, the issue of designing energy efficient cellular networks has drawn significant attention, which is also the foremost motivation behind this research. The proposed research is particularly focused on the design of self-organizing type traffic-sensitive dynamic network reconfiguring mechanisms for energy efficiency in cellular systems. Under the proposed techniques, radio access networks (RANs) are adaptively reconfigured using less equipment leading to reduced energy utilization. Several energy efficient cellular network frameworks by employing inter-base station (BS) cooperation in RANs are proposed. Under these frameworks, based on the instantaneous traffic demand, BSs are dynamically switched between active and sleep modes by redistributing traffic among them and thus, energy savings is achieved. The focus is then extended to exploiting the availability of multiple cellular networks for extracting energy savings through inter-RAN cooperation. Mathematical models for both of these single-RAN and multi-RAN cooperation mechanisms are also formulated. An alternative energy saving technique using dynamic sectorization (DS) under which some of the sectors in the underutilized BSs are turned into sleep mode is also proposed. Algorithms for both the distributed and the centralized implementations are developed. Finally, a two-dimensional energy efficient network provisioning mechanism is proposed by jointly applying both the DS and the dynamic BS switching. Extensive simulations are carried out, which demonstrate the capability of the proposed mechanisms in substantially enhancing the energy efficiency of cellular networks
Leveraging intelligence from network CDR data for interference aware energy consumption minimization
Cell densification is being perceived as the panacea for the imminent capacity crunch. However, high aggregated energy consumption and increased inter-cell interference (ICI) caused by densification, remain the two long-standing problems. We propose a novel network orchestration solution for simultaneously minimizing energy consumption and ICI in ultra-dense 5G networks. The proposed solution builds on a big data analysis of over 10 million CDRs from a real network that shows there exists strong spatio-temporal predictability in real network traffic patterns. Leveraging this we develop a novel scheme to pro-actively schedule radio resources and small cell sleep cycles yielding substantial energy savings and reduced ICI, without compromising the users QoS. This scheme is derived by formulating a joint Energy Consumption and ICI minimization problem and solving it through a combination of linear binary integer programming, and progressive analysis based heuristic algorithm. Evaluations using: 1) a HetNet deployment designed for Milan city where big data analytics are used on real CDRs data from the Telecom Italia network to model traffic patterns, 2) NS-3 based Monte-Carlo simulations with synthetic Poisson traffic show that, compared to full frequency reuse and always on approach, in best case, proposed scheme can reduce energy consumption in HetNets to 1/8th while providing same or better Qo
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