D 3. 3 Final performance results and consolidated view on the most promising multi -node/multi -antenna transmission technologies

This document provides the most recent updates on the technical contributions and research challenges focused in WP3. Each Technology Component (TeC) has been evaluated under possible uniform assessment framework of WP3 which is based on the simulation guidelines of WP6. The performance assessment is supported by the simulation results which are in their mature and stable state. An update on the Most Promising Technology Approaches (MPTAs) and their associated TeCs is the main focus of this document. Based on the input of all the TeCs in WP3, a consolidated view of WP3 on the role of multinode/multi-antenna transmission technologies in 5G systems has also been provided. This consolidated view is further supported in this document by the presentation of the impact of MPTAs on METIS scenarios and the addressed METIS goals.Aziz, D.; Baracca, P.; De Carvalho, E.; Fantini, R.; Rajatheva, N.; Popovski, P.; Sørensen, JH.... (2015). D 3. 3 Final performance results and consolidated view on the most promising multi -node/multi -antenna transmission technologies. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/7675

Energy-efficient cooperative resource allocation for OFDMA

Energy is increasingly becoming an exclusive commodity in next generation wireless communication systems, where even in legacy systems, the mobile operators operational expenditure is largely attributed to the energy bill. However, as the amount of mobile traffic is expected to double over the next decade as we enter the Next Generation communications era, the need to address energy efficient protocols will be a priority. Therefore, we will need to revisit the design of the mobile network in order to adopt a proactive stance towards reducing the energy consumption of the network. Future emerging communication paradigms will evolve towards Next Generation mobile networks, that will not only consider a new air interface for high broadband connectivity, but will also integrate legacy communications (LTE/LTE-A, IEEE 802.11x, among others) networks to provide a ubiquitous communication platform, and one that can host a multitude of rich services and applications. In this context, one can say that the radio access network will predominantly be OFDMA based, providing the impetus for further research studies on how this technology can be further optimized towards energy efficiency. In fact, advanced approaches towards both energy and spectral efficient design will still dominate the research agenda. Taking a step towards this direction, LTE/LTE-A (Long Term Evolution-Advanced) have already investigated cooperative paradigms such as SON (self-Organizing Networks), Network Sharing, and CoMP (Coordinated Multipoint) transmission. Although these technologies have provided promising results, some are still in their infancy and lack an interdisciplinary design approach limiting their potential gain. In this thesis, we aim to advance these future emerging paradigms from a resource allocation perspective on two accounts. In the first scenario, we address the challenge of load balancing (LB) in OFDMA networks, that is employed to redistribute the traffic load in the network to effectively use spectral resources throughout the day. We aim to reengineer the load-balancing (LB) approach through interdisciplinary design to develop an integrated energy efficient solution based on SON and network sharing, what we refer to as SO-LB (Self-Organizing Load balancing). Obtained simulation results show that by employing SO-LB algorithm in a shared network, it is possible to achieve up to 15-20% savings in energy consumption when compared to LTE-A non-shared networks. The second approach considers CoMP transmission, that is currently used to enhance cell coverage and capacity at cell edge. Legacy approaches mainly consider fundamental scheduling policies towards assigning users for CoMP transmission. We build on these scheduling approaches towards a cross-layer design that provide enhanced resource utilization, fairness, and energy saving whilst maintaining low complexity, in particular for broadband applications

Enabling Technologies for Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications: From PHY and MAC Layer Perspectives

© 1998-2012 IEEE. Future 5th generation networks are expected to enable three key services-enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine type communications and ultra-reliable and low latency communications (URLLC). As per the 3rd generation partnership project URLLC requirements, it is expected that the reliability of one transmission of a 32 byte packet will be at least 99.999% and the latency will be at most 1 ms. This unprecedented level of reliability and latency will yield various new applications, such as smart grids, industrial automation and intelligent transport systems. In this survey we present potential future URLLC applications, and summarize the corresponding reliability and latency requirements. We provide a comprehensive discussion on physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layer techniques that enable URLLC, addressing both licensed and unlicensed bands. This paper evaluates the relevant PHY and MAC techniques for their ability to improve the reliability and reduce the latency. We identify that enabling long-term evolution to coexist in the unlicensed spectrum is also a potential enabler of URLLC in the unlicensed band, and provide numerical evaluations. Lastly, this paper discusses the potential future research directions and challenges in achieving the URLLC requirements

Sustainable scheduling policies for radio access networks based on LTE technology

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyIn the LTE access networks, the Radio Resource Management (RRM) is one of the most important modules which is responsible for handling the overall management of radio resources. The packet scheduler is a particular sub-module which assigns the existing radio resources to each user in order to deliver the requested services in the most efficient manner. Data packets are scheduled dynamically at every Transmission Time Interval (TTI), a time window used to take the user’s requests and to respond them accordingly. The scheduling procedure is conducted by using scheduling rules which select different users to be scheduled at each TTI based on some priority metrics. Various scheduling rules exist and they behave differently by balancing the scheduler performance in the direction imposed by one of the following objectives: increasing the system throughput, maintaining the user fairness, respecting the Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR), Head of Line (HoL) packet delay, packet loss rate and queue stability requirements. Most of the static scheduling rules follow the sequential multi-objective optimization in the sense that when the first targeted objective is satisfied, then other objectives can be prioritized. When the targeted scheduling objective(s) can be satisfied at each TTI, the LTE scheduler is considered to be optimal or feasible. So, the scheduling performance depends on the exploited rule being focused on particular objectives. This study aims to increase the percentage of feasible TTIs for a given downlink transmission by applying a mixture of scheduling rules instead of using one discipline adopted across the entire scheduling session. Two types of optimization problems are proposed in this sense: Dynamic Scheduling Rule based Sequential Multi-Objective Optimization (DSR-SMOO) when the applied scheduling rules address the same objective and Dynamic Scheduling Rule based Concurrent Multi-Objective Optimization (DSR-CMOO) if the pool of rules addresses different scheduling objectives. The best way of solving such complex optimization problems is to adapt and to refine scheduling policies which are able to call different rules at each TTI based on the best matching scheduler conditions (states). The idea is to develop a set of non-linear functions which maps the scheduler state at each TTI in optimal distribution probabilities of selecting the best scheduling rule. Due to the multi-dimensional and continuous characteristics of the scheduler state space, the scheduling functions should be approximated. Moreover, the function approximations are learned through the interaction with the RRM environment. The Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms are used in this sense in order to evaluate and to refine the scheduling policies for the considered DSR-SMOO/CMOO optimization problems. The neural networks are used to train the non-linear mapping functions based on the interaction among the intelligent controller, the LTE packet scheduler and the RRM environment. In order to enhance the convergence in the feasible state and to reduce the scheduler state space dimension, meta-heuristic approaches are used for the channel statement aggregation. Simulation results show that the proposed aggregation scheme is able to outperform other heuristic methods. When the aggregation scheme of the channel statements is exploited, the proposed DSR-SMOO/CMOO problems focusing on different objectives which are solved by using various RL approaches are able to: increase the mean percentage of feasible TTIs, minimize the number of TTIs when the RL approaches punish the actions taken TTI-by-TTI, and minimize the variation of the performance indicators when different simulations are launched in parallel. This way, the obtained scheduling policies being focused on the multi-objective criteria are sustainable. Keywords: LTE, packet scheduling, scheduling rules, multi-objective optimization, reinforcement learning, channel, aggregation, scheduling policies, sustainable

Quality of service optimization of multimedia traffic in mobile networks

Mobile communication systems have continued to evolve beyond the currently deployed Third Generation (3G) systems with the main goal of providing higher capacity. Systems beyond 3G are expected to cater for a wide variety of services such as speech, data, image transmission, video, as well as multimedia services consisting of a combination of these. With the air interface being the bottleneck in mobile networks, recent enhancing technologies such as the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), incorporate major changes to the radio access segment of 3G Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). HSDPA introduces new features such as fast link adaptation mechanisms, fast packet scheduling, and physical layer retransmissions in the base stations, necessitating buffering of data at the air interface which presents a bottleneck to end-to-end communication. Hence, in order to provide end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees to multimedia services in wireless networks such as HSDPA, efficient buffer management schemes are required at the air interface. The main objective of this thesis is to propose and evaluate solutions that will address the QoS optimization of multimedia traffic at the radio link interface of HSDPA systems. In the thesis, a novel queuing system known as the Time-Space Priority (TSP) scheme is proposed for multimedia traffic QoS control. TSP provides customized preferential treatment to the constituent flows in the multimedia traffic to suit their diverse QoS requirements. With TSP queuing, the real-time component of the multimedia traffic, being delay sensitive and loss tolerant, is given transmission priority; while the non-real-time component, being loss sensitive and delay tolerant, enjoys space priority. Hence, based on the TSP queuing paradigm, new buffer managementalgorithms are designed for joint QoS control of the diverse components in a multimedia session of the same HSDPA user. In the thesis, a TSP based buffer management algorithm known as the Enhanced Time Space Priority (E-TSP) is proposed for HSDPA. E-TSP incorporates flow control mechanisms to mitigate congestion in the air interface buffer of a user with multimedia session comprising real-time and non-real-time flows. Thus, E-TSP is designed to provide efficient network and radio resource utilization to improve end-to-end multimedia traffic performance. In order to allow real-time optimization of the QoS control between the real-time and non-real-time flows of the HSDPA multimedia session, another TSP based buffer management algorithm known as the Dynamic Time Space Priority (D-TSP) is proposed. D-TSP incorporates dynamic priority switching between the real-time and non-real-time flows. D-TSP is designed to allow optimum QoS trade-off between the flows whilst still guaranteeing the stringent real-time component’s QoS requirements. The thesis presents results of extensive performance studies undertaken via analytical modelling and dynamic network-level HSDPA simulations demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed TSP queuing system and the TSP based buffer management schemes

Multiuser MIMO techniques with feedback

Kooperative Antennenanlagen haben vor kurzem einen heißen Forschungsthema geworden, da Sie deutlich höhere spektrale Effizienz als herkömmliche zelluläre Systeme versprechen. Der Gewinn wird durch die Eliminierung von Inter-Zelle Störungen (ICI) durch Koordinierung der-Antenne Übertragungen erworben. Vor kurzem, verteilte Organisation Methoden vorgeschlagen. Eine der größten Herausforderungen für das Dezentrale kooperative Antennensystem ist Kanalschätzung für den Downlink Kanal besonders wenn FDD verwendet wird. Alle zugehörigen Basisstationen im genossenschaftlichen Bereich müssen die vollständige Kanal Informationen zu Wissen, die entsprechenden precoding Gewicht Matrix zu berechnen. Diese Information ist von mobilen Stationen übertragen werden Stationen mit Uplink Ressourcen zu stützen. Wird als mehrere Basisstationen und mehreren mobilen Stationen in kooperativen Antennensysteme und jede Basisstation und Mobilstation beteiligt sind, können mit mehreren Antennen ausgestattet sein, die Anzahl der Kanal Parameter wieder gefüttert werden erwartet, groß zu sein. In dieser Arbeit wird ein effizientes Feedback Techniken der downlink Kanal Informationen sind für die Multi-user Multiple Input Multiple Output Fall vorgeschlagen, der insbesondere auf verteilte kooperative Antennensysteme zielt. Zuerst wird ein Unterraum-basiertes Kanalquantisierungsverfahren vorgeschlagen, das ein vorbestimmtes Codebuch verwendet. Ein iterativer Codebuchentwurfsalgorithmus wird vorgeschlagen, der zu einem lokalen optimalen Codebuch konvergiert. Darüber hinaus werden Feedback-Overhead-Reduktionsverfahren entwickelt, die die zeitliche Korrelation des Kanals ausnutzen. Es wird gezeigt, dass das vorgeschlagene adaptive Codebuchverfahren in Verbindung mit einem Datenkomprimierungsschema eine Leistung nahe an dem perfekten Kanalfall erzielt, was viel weniger Rückkopplungsoverhead im Vergleich zu anderen Techniken erfordert. Das auf dem Unterraum basierende Kanalquantisierungsverfahren wird erweitert, indem mehrere Antennen auf der Senderseite und/oder auf der Empfängerseite eingeführt werden, und die Leistung eines Vorcodierungs- (/Decodierungs-) Schemas mit regulierter Blockdiagonalisierung (RBD) wurde untersucht. Es wird ein kosteneffizientes Decodierungsmatrixquantisierungsverfahren vorgeschlagen, dass eine komplexe Berechnung an der Mobilstation vermeiden kann, während es nur eine leichte Verschlechterung zeigt. Die Arbeit wird abgeschlossen, indem die vorgeschlagenen Feedback-Methoden hinsichtlich ihrer Leistung, ihres erforderlichen Feedback-Overheads und ihrer Rechenkomplexität verglichen werden.Cooperative antenna systems have recently become a hot research topic, as they promise significantly higher spectral efficiency than conventional cellular systems. The gain is acquired by eliminating inter-cell interference (ICI) through coordination of the base antenna transmissions. Recently, distributed organization methods have been suggested. One of the main challenges of the distributed cooperative antenna system is channel estimation for the downlink channel especially when FDD is used. All of the associated base stations in the cooperative area need to know the full channel state information to calculate the corresponding precoding weight matrix. This information has to be transferred from mobile stations to base stations by using uplink resources. As several base stations and several mobile stations are involved in cooperative antenna systems and each base station and mobile station may be equipped with multiple antennas, the number of channel state parameters to be fed back is expected to be big. In this thesis, efficient feedback techniques of the downlink channel state information are proposed for the multi-user multiple-input multiple-output case, targeting distributed cooperative antenna systems in particular. First, a subspace based channel quantization method is proposed which employs a predefined codebook. An iterative codebook design algorithm is proposed which converges to a local optimum codebook. Furthermore, feedback overhead reduction methods are devised exploiting temporal correlation of the channel. It is shown that the proposed adaptive codebook method in conjunction with a data compression scheme achieves a performance close to the perfect channel case, requiring much less feedback overhead compared with other techniques. The subspace based channel quantization method is extended by introducing multiple antennas at the transmitter side and/or at the receiver side and the performance of a regularized block diagonalization (RBD) precoding(/decoding) scheme has been investigated as well as a zero-forcing (ZF) precoding scheme. A cost-efficient decoding matrix quantization method is proposed which can avoid a complex computation at the mobile station while showing only a slight degradation. The thesis is concluded by comparing the proposed feedback methods in terms of their performance, their required feedback overhead, and their computational complexity. The techniques that are developed in this thesis can be useful and applicable for 5G, which is envisioned to support the high granularity/resolution codebook and its efficient deployment schemes. Keywords: MU-MIMO, COOPA, limited feedback, CSI, CQ, feedback overhead reduction, Givens rotatio

Estratégias de design de camada intermédia e cooperativa para redes sem fios energeticamente eficientes

Doutoramento conjunto MAP-i em InformáticaThe promise of a truly mobile experience is to have the freedom to roam around anywhere and not be bound to a single location. However, the energy required to keep mobile devices connected to the network over extended periods of time quickly dissipates. In fact, energy is a critical resource in the design of wireless networks since wireless devices are usually powered by batteries. Furthermore, multi-standard mobile devices are allowing users to enjoy higher data rates with ubiquitous connectivity. However, the bene ts gained from multiple interfaces come at a cost in terms of energy consumption having profound e ect on the mobile battery lifetime and standby time. This concern is rea rmed by the fact that battery lifetime is one of the top reasons why consumers are deterred from using advanced multimedia services on their mobile on a frequent basis. In order to secure market penetration for next generation services energy e ciency needs to be placed at the forefront of system design. However, despite recent e orts, energy compliant features in legacy technologies are still in its infancy, and new disruptive architectures coupled with interdisciplinary design approaches are required in order to not only promote the energy gain within a single protocol layer, but to enhance the energy gain from a holistic perspective. A promising approach is cooperative smart systems, that in addition to exploiting context information, are entities that are able to form a coalition and cooperate in order to achieve a common goal. Migrating from this baseline, this thesis investigates how these technology paradigm can be applied towards reducing the energy consumption in mobile networks. In addition, we introduce an additional energy saving dimension by adopting an interlayer design so that protocol layers are designed to work in synergy with the host system, rather than independently, for harnessing energy. In this work, we exploit context information, cooperation and inter-layer design for developing new energy e cient and technology agnostic building blocks for mobile networks. These technology enablers include energy e cient node discovery and short-range cooperation for energy saving in mobile handsets, complemented by energy-aware smart scheduling for promoting energy saving on the network side. Analytical and simulations results were obtained, and veri ed in the lab on a real hardware testbed. Results have shown that up to 50% energy saving could be obtained.A promessa de uma experiência realmente móvel é de ter a liberdade de deambular por qualquer sítio e não estar preso a um único local. No entanto, a energia requerida para manter dispositivos móveis conectados à rede, num período extenso de tempo, o mesmo rapidamente se dissipa. Na realidade, a energia é um recurso crítico no design de redes sem fios, uma vez que esses dispositivos são alimentados por baterias. Para além disso, dispositivos móveis multi-standard permitem que os utilizadores desfrutem de elevadas taxas de dados com conectividade omnipresente. No entanto, as vantagens adquiridas pelas múltiplas interfaces, imputa uma despesa, sendo essa um consumo maior de energia, numa era onde os dispositivos móveis têm de ser energicamente complacentes. Esta preocupação é reafirmada pelo facto de que a vida da bateria é uma das principais razões que impede os utilizadores de usufruir e utilizar de serviços de multimédia mais avançados nos seus dispositivos, numa base frequente. De forma a assegurar a entrada no mercado para serviços da próxima geração, eficiência energética tem de ser colocada na vanguarda do design de sistemas. No entanto, apesar de esforços recentes, funcionalidades que cumpram os requisitos energéticos em tecnologias "legacy" ainda estão nos seus primórdios e novas abordagens disruptivas são requeridas, juntamente com abordagem de design interdisciplinar, de forma a aproveitar a poupança energética das diversas camadas protocolares. Uma bordagem promissora são os sistemas de cooperação inteligente, que exploram não são contexto da informação, mas também as entidades que são igualmente capazes de formar uma coligação e cooperam de forma a atingir um objectivo comum. Migrar a partir destas referências, esta tese investiga como é que este paradigma tecnológico pode ser aplicado para reduzir a potência e consumo de energia em redes móveis. Para além disso, introduzimos uma dimensão de poupança energética adicional, para adopção de design de camadas intermédias, de forma a que as camadas de protocolos sejam concebidas para trabalhar em sinergia com o sistema anfitrião, ao invés de independentemente, para aproveitamento de energia. Neste trabalho, nós exploramos o contexto da informação, cooperação e design de camadas intermédias para desenvolver blocos de construção energicamente eficientes e tecnologias agnósticas para redes móveis. Estes habilitadores (enablers) tecnológicos incluem um nó de descoberta de energia eficiente e cooperação de curto alcance para poupança energética em aparelhos móveis, complementado com agendamento inteligente, energicamente consciente, de forma a promover a poupança de energia do lado da rede. Analiticamente e simultaneamente, foram obtidos resultados e verificados em laboratório, num modelo de hardware protótipo. Resultados demonstram que pode ser obtido uma poupança energética acima dos 50%