Wireless Communications in the Era of Big Data

The rapidly growing wave of wireless data service is pushing against the boundary of our communication network's processing power. The pervasive and exponentially increasing data traffic present imminent challenges to all the aspects of the wireless system design, such as spectrum efficiency, computing capabilities and fronthaul/backhaul link capacity. In this article, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in the design of scalable wireless systems to embrace such a "bigdata" era. On one hand, we review the state-of-the-art networking architectures and signal processing techniques adaptable for managing the bigdata traffic in wireless networks. On the other hand, instead of viewing mobile bigdata as a unwanted burden, we introduce methods to capitalize from the vast data traffic, for building a bigdata-aware wireless network with better wireless service quality and new mobile applications. We highlight several promising future research directions for wireless communications in the mobile bigdata era.Comment: This article is accepted and to appear in IEEE Communications Magazin

Scalable parallel communications

Coarse-grain parallelism in networking (that is, the use of multiple protocol processors running replicated software sending over several physical channels) can be used to provide gigabit communications for a single application. Since parallel network performance is highly dependent on real issues such as hardware properties (e.g., memory speeds and cache hit rates), operating system overhead (e.g., interrupt handling), and protocol performance (e.g., effect of timeouts), we have performed detailed simulations studies of both a bus-based multiprocessor workstation node (based on the Sun Galaxy MP multiprocessor) and a distributed-memory parallel computer node (based on the Touchstone DELTA) to evaluate the behavior of coarse-grain parallelism. Our results indicate: (1) coarse-grain parallelism can deliver multiple 100 Mbps with currently available hardware platforms and existing networking protocols (such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and parallel Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) rings); (2) scale-up is near linear in n, the number of protocol processors, and channels (for small n and up to a few hundred Mbps); and (3) since these results are based on existing hardware without specialized devices (except perhaps for some simple modifications of the FDDI boards), this is a low cost solution to providing multiple 100 Mbps on current machines. In addition, from both the performance analysis and the properties of these architectures, we conclude: (1) multiple processors providing identical services and the use of space division multiplexing for the physical channels can provide better reliability than monolithic approaches (it also provides graceful degradation and low-cost load balancing); (2) coarse-grain parallelism supports running several transport protocols in parallel to provide different types of service (for example, one TCP handles small messages for many users, other TCP's running in parallel provide high bandwidth service to a single application); and (3) coarse grain parallelism will be able to incorporate many future improvements from related work (e.g., reduced data movement, fast TCP, fine-grain parallelism) also with near linear speed-ups

Synergizing Roadway Infrastructure Investment with Digital Infrastructure for Infrastructure-Based Connected Vehicle Applications: Review of Current Status and Future Directions

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The safety, mobility, environmental and economic benefits of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are potentially dramatic. However, realization of these benefits largely hinges on the timely upgrading of the existing transportation system. CAVs must be enabled to send and receive data to and from other vehicles and drivers (V2V communication) and to and from infrastructure (V2I communication). Further, infrastructure and the transportation agencies that manage it must be able to collect, process, distribute and archive these data quickly, reliably, and securely. This paper focuses on current digital roadway infrastructure initiatives and highlights the importance of including digital infrastructure investment alongside more traditional infrastructure investment to keep up with the auto industry's push towards this real time communication and data processing capability. Agencies responsible for transportation infrastructure construction and management must collaborate, establishing national and international platforms to guide the planning, deployment and management of digital infrastructure in their jurisdictions. This will help create standardized interoperable national and international systems so that CAV technology is not deployed in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner

Fiber optic networks: fairness, access controls and prototyping

Fiber optic technologies enabling high-speed, high-capacity digital information transport have only been around for about 3 decades but in their short life have completely revolutionized global communications. To keep pace with the growing demand for digital communications and entertainment, fiber optic networks and technologies continue to grow and mature. As new applications in telecommunications, computer networking and entertainment emerge, reliability, scalability, and high Quality of Service (QoS) requirements are increasing the complexity of optical transport networks.;This dissertation is devoted to providing a discussion of existing and emerging technologies in modern optical communications networks. To this end, we first outline traditional telecommunication and data networks that enable high speed, long distance information transport. We examine various network architectures including mesh, ring and bus topologies of modern Local, Metropolitan and Wide area networks. We present some of the most successful technologies used in todays communications networks, outline their shortcomings and introduce promising new technologies to meet the demands of future transport networks.;The capacity of a single wavelength optical signal is 10 Gbps today and is likely to increase to over 100 Gbps as demonstrated in laboratory settings. In addition, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) techniques, able to support over 160 wavelengths on a single optical fiber, have effectively increased the capacity of a single optical fiber to well over 1 Tbps. However, user requirements are often of a sub-wavelength order. This mis-match between individual user requirements and single wavelength offerings necessitates bandwidth sharing mechanisms to efficiently multiplex multiple low rate streams on to high rate wavelength channels, called traffic grooming.;This dissertation examines traffic grooming in the context of circuit, packet, burst and trail switching paradigms. Of primary interest are the Media Access Control (MAC) protocols used to provide QoS and fairness in optical networks. We present a comprehensive discussion of the most recognized fairness models and MACs for ring and bus networks which lay the groundwork for the development of the Robust, Dynamic and Fair Network (RDFN) protocol for ring networks. The RDFN protocol is a novel solution to fairly share ring bandwidth for bursty asynchronous data traffic while providing bandwidth and delay guarantees for synchronous voice traffic.;We explain the light-trail (LT) architecture and technology introduced in [37] as a solution to providing high network resource utilization, seamless scalability and network transparency for metropolitan area networks. The goal of light-trails is to eliminate Optical Electronic Optical (O-E-O) conversion, minimize active switching, maximize wavelength utilization, and offer protocol and bit-rate transparency to address the growing demands placed on WDM networks. Light-trail technology is a physical layer architecture that combines commercially available optical components to allow multiple nodes along a lightpath to participate in time multiplexed communication without the need for burst or packet level switch reconfiguration. We present three medium access control protocols for light-trails that provide collision protection but do not consider fair network access. As an improvement to these light-trail MAC protocols we introduce the Token LT and light-trail Fair Access (LT-FA) MAC protocols and evaluate their performance. We illustrate how fairness is achieved and access delay guarantees are made to satisfy the bandwidth budget fairness model. The goal of light-trails and our access control solution is to combine commercially available components with emerging network technologies to provide a transparent, reliable and highly scalable communication network.;The second area of discussion in this dissertation deals with the rapid prototyping platform. We discuss how the reconfigurable rapid prototyping platform (RRPP) is being utilized to bridge the gap between academic research, education and industry. We provide details of the Real-time Radon transform and the Griffin parallel computing platform implemented using the RRPP. We discuss how the RRPP provides additional visibility to academic research initiatives and facilitates understanding of system level designs. As a proof of concept, we introduce the light-trail testbed developed at the High Speed Systems Engineering lab. We discuss how a light-trail test bed has been developed using the RRPP to provide additional insight on the real-world limitations of light-trail technology. We provide details on its operation and discuss the steps required to and decisions made to realize test-bed operation. Two applications are presented to illustrate the use of the LT-FA MAC in the test-bed and demonstrate streaming media over light-trails.;As a whole, this dissertation aims to provide a comprehensive discussion of current and future technologies and trends for optical communication networks. In addition, we provide media access control solutions for ring and bus networks to address fair resource sharing and access delay guarantees. The light-trail testbed demonstrates proof of concept and outlines system level design challenges for future optical networks

Algorithm of optimal technology selection of broadband access network

High speed applications require the access network upgrading based on new optical technologies in “last mile”. At the planning stage of network modernization, special algorithms and techniques allow optimize and automate the designing process of network upgrade based on copper cables. However, these techniques are completely inapplicable if optical technologies are used to the access network modernization. Designed algorithm simplifies the throughput calculation of current access nodes and planning of new access nodes depending on subscriber’s requirementstto the broadband services. Developed program based on proposed algorithm allows to determinate access nodes optimal deployment as well as the required equipment characteristics

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

Models for planning the evolution of local telecommunication networks

Includes bibliographical references.Research initiated through a grant from GTE Laboratories, Inc. Supported in part by an AT&T research award. Supported in part by the Systems Theory and Operations Research Program of the National Science Foundation. ECS-8316224 Supported in part by ONR. N0000-14-86-0689A. Balakrishnan ... [et al.]

Models for planning the evolution of local telecommunication networks

Includes bibliographical references.Research initiated through a grant from GTE Laboratories, Inc. Supported in part by an AT&T research award. Supported in part by the Systems Theory and Operations Research Program of the National Science Foundation. ECS-8316224 Supported in part by ONR. N0000-14-86-0689A. Balakrishnan ... [et al.]