6G Enabled Smart Infrastructure for Sustainable Society: Opportunities, Challenges, and Research Roadmap

The 5G wireless communication network is currently faced with the challenge of limited data speed exacerbated by the proliferation of billions of data-intensive applications. To address this problem, researchers are developing cutting-edge technologies for the envisioned 6G wireless communication standards to satisfy the escalating wireless services demands. Though some of the candidate technologies in the 5G standards will apply to 6G wireless networks, key disruptive technologies that will guarantee the desired quality of physical experience to achieve ubiquitous wireless connectivity are expected in 6G. This article first provides a foundational background on the evolution of different wireless communication standards to have a proper insight into the vision and requirements of 6G. Second, we provide a panoramic view of the enabling technologies proposed to facilitate 6G and introduce emerging 6G applications such as multi-sensory–extended reality, digital replica, and more. Next, the technology-driven challenges, social, psychological, health and commercialization issues posed to actualizing 6G, and the probable solutions to tackle these challenges are discussed extensively. Additionally, we present new use cases of the 6G technology in agriculture, education, media and entertainment, logistics and transportation, and tourism. Furthermore, we discuss the multi-faceted communication capabilities of 6G that will contribute significantly to global sustainability and how 6G will bring about a dramatic change in the business arena. Finally, we highlight the research trends, open research issues, and key take-away lessons for future research exploration in 6G wireless communicatio

DoA and ToA Estimation, Device Positioning and Network Synchronization in 5G New Radio : Algorithms and Performance Analysis

Location information plays a significant role not only in our everyday life through various location-based services, but also in emerging technologies such as virtual reality, robotics, and autonomous driving. In contrast to the existing and earlier cellular generations, positioning has been considered as a key element in future cellular networks from the very beginning of the fifth generation (5G) standardization process. Even though the earlier generations are capably of providing coarse location estimates, the achieved accuracy is far from the expected even sub-meter positioning accuracy envisioned in the context of 5G networks. In general, 5G new radio (NR) networks provide a convenient infrastructure for positioning by means of wider bandwidths, larger antenna arrays, and even more densely deployed networks especially at high millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies. Building on dense 5G NR networks, this thesis focuses on the development of novel network-centric positioning frameworks by exploiting the existing NR reference signals. The contributions in this thesis can be grouped into topics based on the considered frequency ranges and the employed beamforming (BF) schemes therein. First, novel cascaded algorithms for sequential device positioning are proposed assuming 5G NR networks operating at the lower sub-6 GHz frequency range and equipped with digital BF capabilities. In the first stage of the cascaded solution, two sequential estimators are proposed for joint direction of arrival (DoA) and time of arrival (ToA) estimation facilitating the received reference signals. Thereafter, the second-stage sequential estimators employing the obtained DoA and ToA estimates are proposed for joint positioning and network synchronization resulting in not only device location estimates, but also clock parameter estimates that are obtained as a valuable by-product. Such a choice stems from the fact that the ToA estimates are not feasible for positioning as such due to the clock instabilities in low-cost devices and the insufficient level of synchronization in the cellular networks. Second, a similar cascaded algorithm for joint positioning and network synchronization is proposed in the context of dense mmWave 5G networks and fundamentally different analog BFs. In particular, a novel joint DoA and ToA estimator is proposed by fusing information from multiple received beams based on a novel beam-selection method. In addition, the theoretical performance limits are derived and compared to those obtained using the digital BFs. The cascaded framework is completed with the second-stage positioning solution in a similar manner as in the case of digital BFs. The performance of both frameworks is evaluated and analyzed in various scenarios using extensive computer simulations relying on the latest 5G NR numerology and a ray-tracing tool. Overall, this thesis provides valuable insights into practical positioning algorithms and their performance when relying solely on the 5G NR networks and available signalling therein. The obtained results in this thesis indicate that the envisioned sub-meter positioning accuracy is technically feasible using NR-based solutions

Millimetriaaltopohjainen runkoyhteys ultratiheille langattomille verkoille - Itseasentuvien verkkoelementtien analyysi

The amount of wireless traffic and number of connected devices are expected to explode in the coming future. By the year 2020 the amount of data traffic is forecasted to grow 1000 times from 2010 levels and the amount of connected devices is expected to reach 50 billion. One reason to these numbers is massive increase in machine type communications. 5G networks have been envisioned to address these challenges. In the 5G network concept the networks are getting denser than ever before. Millimeter wave communications play an important role in backhauling of the mobile traffic as deploying optical fiber to every small node is most likely going to be too cost intensive for operators. Efficient deployment of an ultra-dense wireless network requires that the devices support so called “plug and play” installation. In practice it means that a mechanic installing a new radio node should only perform physical mounting of the device. Antenna alignment and link setup processes should be fully automated. The purpose of this thesis is to study practical issues and possible solutions of realizing the plug and play installation in a cost efficient way. This study will define scenarios and functional requirements of adding access nodes to backhaul networks. Technical evaluation of link discovery process and cost analysis on plug and play installation of access nodes are conducted.Tulevaisuudessa langattomien laitteiden määrän ja niiden generoiman liikenteen odotetaan kasvavan räjähdysmäisesti. Vuoteen 2020 mennessä verkoissa siirrettävien datamäärien on ennustettu kasvavan tuhatkertaisiksi vuoden 2010 tasosta, ja liitettyjen laitteiden määrän odotetaan nousevan 50 miljardiin. Yksi syy näihin on koneiden välisen viestinnän massiivinen kasvu. 5G-verkkoja on kaavailtu vastaamaan edellä mainittuihin haasteisiin. Osana 5G-konseptia verkkojen odotetaan rakentuvan tiheämmiksi kuin koskaan aiemmin. Millimetriaaltoihin pohjautuvat linkit tulevat olemaan merkittävässä roolissa mobiilidatan siirtämisessä radionoodeista runkoverkkoon, koska optisen kuidun rakentaminen jokaiselle pienelle noodille tulisi mitä luultavimmin operaattoreille liian kalliiksi. Ultratiheiden verkkojen tehokas rakentaminen vaatii, että asennettavat laitteet tukevan niin sanottua itseasennusta. Käytännössä se tarkoittaa sitä, että asentajan täytyy ainoastaan suorittaa radionoodin fyysinen asennus. Antenniensuuntaus- ja linkinmuodostusprosessien tulisi olla täysin automatisoituja. Tämän diplomityön tarkoituksena on tutkia kustannustehokkaaseen itseasennukseen liittyviä käytännön ongelmia sekä mahdollisia ratkaisuita. Tutkimus määrittelee skenaariot ja funktionaaliset vaatimukset radionoodien lisäämiseksi osaksi operaattorin verkkoa. Työ sisältää linkkienmuodostusprosessin teknisen evaluoinnin, sekä kustannusanalyysin tiheiden verkkojen rakentamisesta hyödyntäen itseasennustekniikkaa

Δίκτυα Υποδομής και Τεχνολογίες Δικτύωσης για Συστήματα 5ης Γενιάς.

Η σημερινή εποχή με τις τεράστιες απαιτήσεις σε ευρος ζώνης, κινητικότητα και ταχύτητες σχεδόν σε πραγματικό χρόνο, πλέον αρχίζει να μη μπορέι να εξυπηρετηθεί από τις υφιστάμενες τεχνολογίες. Ο κατακλυσμός της αγοράς από έξυπνες συσκευές, ταμπλέτες και διάφορες άλλες δικτυωμένες συσκευές δημιουργεί μεγαλύτερες απαιτήσεις από το δίκτυο. Το μεγαλύτερο φορτίο στο δίκτυο καταγράφεται, όπως είναι φυσικό από τη μεταφορά δεδομένων, όπως υψηλής ανάλυσης βίντεο, online gaming και μια πληθώρα ακόμα από υπηρεσίες οι οποίες ακόμα και εν κινήσει θα πρέπει να εξυπηρετούνται. Επίσης, και η ποιότητα και η εμπειρία της υπηρεσίας για τον χρήστη θα πρέπει να είναι άριστη ακόμα και σε πολυσύχναστα σημεία και σε ώρες αιχμής. Όπως αντιλαμβανόμαστε η μετάβαση από τα σημερινά δίκτυα στα δίκτυα πέμπτης γενιάς καθιστάται επιβεβλιμένη και γι’ αυτό το λόγο, ερευνητικές ομάδες από διάφορα πανεπιστήμια και εταιρίες τηλεπικοινωνιών έχουν αναλάβει αυτό το δύσκολο έργο, ώστε να επιτευχθούν οι απαιτήσεις και οι στόχοι των 5G δικτύων. Στην παρούσα διπλωματική, στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο, γίνεται αναφορά στα κίνητρα ανάπτυξης καθώς και στις απαιτήσεις των συστημάτων 5ης γενιάς δικτύων. Επίσης γίνεται αναφορά στην προτυποποίηση των συστημάτων όπως και στις παραμέτρους που πρέπει να ικανοποιηθούν και να ρυθμιστούν από τους αρμόδιους φορείς. Στη συνέχεια παρουσιάζονται διάφορα χρηματοδοτούμενα ερευνητικά προγράμματα τα οποία στοχεύουν στην υλοποίηση των δικτύων 5ης γενιάς. Στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο αναλύονται εκτενώς οι αρχιτεκτονικές και οι τεχνολογίες που αναμένεται να χρησιμοποιηθούν για την υλοποίηση των 5G δικτύων. Στο τρίτο κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζονται και αναλύονται εκείνα τα κομμάτια του δικτύου που αρχιτεκτονικά θα υλοποιούνται στα 5G δίκτυα. Επίσης δίνεται έμφαση στις ασύρματες τεχνολογίες όπου στο τέλος του κεφαλαίου, γίνεται μια σύγκριση αυτών.In this diploma, in the first chapter, reference is made to the development motivations as well as to the requirements of the 5th generation networks. Reference is also made to the standardization of the systems as well as to the parameters to be met and regulated by the competent bodies. Next, various funded research projects are presented which aim at the implementation of 5th generation networks. The second chapter analyzes extensively the architectures and technologies that are expected to be used to implement the 5G networks. The third chapter presents and analyzes those parts of the network that will be architecturally implemented in 5G networks. Also, emphasis is placed on wireless technologies where at the end of the chapter a comparison is made

Digitising the Industry Internet of Things Connecting the Physical, Digital and VirtualWorlds

This book provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from the research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. A successful deployment of IoT technologies requires integration on all layers, be it cognitive and semantic aspects, middleware components, services, edge devices/machines and infrastructures. It is intended to be a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC - Internet of Things European Research Cluster from research to technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster and the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and presents global views and state of the art results on the challenges facing the research, innovation, development and deployment of IoT in the next years. The IoT is bridging the physical world with virtual world and requires sound information processing capabilities for the "digital shadows" of these real things. The research and innovation in nanoelectronics, semiconductor, sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, swarm intelligent and deep learning systems are essential for the successful deployment of IoT applications. The emergence of IoT platforms with multiple functionalities enables rapid development and lower costs by offering standardised components that can be shared across multiple solutions in many industry verticals. The IoT applications will gradually move from vertical, single purpose solutions to multi-purpose and collaborative applications interacting across industry verticals, organisations and people, being one of the essential paradigms of the digital economy. Many of those applications still have to be identified and involvement of end-users including the creative sector in this innovation is crucial. The IoT applications and deployments as integrated building blocks of the new digital economy are part of the accompanying IoT policy framework to address issues of horizontal nature and common interest (i.e. privacy, end-to-end security, user acceptance, societal, ethical aspects and legal issues) for providing trusted IoT solutions in a coordinated and consolidated manner across the IoT activities and pilots. In this, context IoT ecosystems offer solutions beyond a platform and solve important technical challenges in the different verticals and across verticals. These IoT technology ecosystems are instrumental for the deployment of large pilots and can easily be connected to or build upon the core IoT solutions for different applications in order to expand the system of use and allow new and even unanticipated IoT end uses. Technical topics discussed in the book include: • Introduction• Digitising industry and IoT as key enabler in the new era of Digital Economy• IoT Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda• IoT in the digital industrial context: Digital Single Market• Integration of heterogeneous systems and bridging the virtual, digital and physical worlds• Federated IoT platforms and interoperability• Evolution from intelligent devices to connected systems of systems by adding new layers of cognitive behaviour, artificial intelligence and user interfaces.• Innovation through IoT ecosystems• Trust-based IoT end-to-end security, privacy framework• User acceptance, societal, ethical aspects and legal issues• Internet of Things Application

Digitising the Industry Internet of Things Connecting the Physical, Digital and VirtualWorlds

This book provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from the research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. A successful deployment of IoT technologies requires integration on all layers, be it cognitive and semantic aspects, middleware components, services, edge devices/machines and infrastructures. It is intended to be a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC - Internet of Things European Research Cluster from research to technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster and the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and presents global views and state of the art results on the challenges facing the research, innovation, development and deployment of IoT in the next years. The IoT is bridging the physical world with virtual world and requires sound information processing capabilities for the "digital shadows" of these real things. The research and innovation in nanoelectronics, semiconductor, sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, swarm intelligent and deep learning systems are essential for the successful deployment of IoT applications. The emergence of IoT platforms with multiple functionalities enables rapid development and lower costs by offering standardised components that can be shared across multiple solutions in many industry verticals. The IoT applications will gradually move from vertical, single purpose solutions to multi-purpose and collaborative applications interacting across industry verticals, organisations and people, being one of the essential paradigms of the digital economy. Many of those applications still have to be identified and involvement of end-users including the creative sector in this innovation is crucial. The IoT applications and deployments as integrated building blocks of the new digital economy are part of the accompanying IoT policy framework to address issues of horizontal nature and common interest (i.e. privacy, end-to-end security, user acceptance, societal, ethical aspects and legal issues) for providing trusted IoT solutions in a coordinated and consolidated manner across the IoT activities and pilots. In this, context IoT ecosystems offer solutions beyond a platform and solve important technical challenges in the different verticals and across verticals. These IoT technology ecosystems are instrumental for the deployment of large pilots and can easily be connected to or build upon the core IoT solutions for different applications in order to expand the system of use and allow new and even unanticipated IoT end uses. Technical topics discussed in the book include: • Introduction• Digitising industry and IoT as key enabler in the new era of Digital Economy• IoT Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda• IoT in the digital industrial context: Digital Single Market• Integration of heterogeneous systems and bridging the virtual, digital and physical worlds• Federated IoT platforms and interoperability• Evolution from intelligent devices to connected systems of systems by adding new layers of cognitive behaviour, artificial intelligence and user interfaces.• Innovation through IoT ecosystems• Trust-based IoT end-to-end security, privacy framework• User acceptance, societal, ethical aspects and legal issues• Internet of Things Application

Urban Ecosystem Services and Tourism

Urban tourism depends on the place specific qualities of destinations. In many cities, climate change poses a threat to these qualities, through increasing risk of excessive heat, draught and flooding. Cities need to adapt to reduce these risks. One way of doing this is to improve their green infrastructure. Urban forests, parks, rivers and wetlands may help reduce the effects of climate change in cities. At the same time, green infrastructure provide a variety of ecosystem services to the community. In particular, cultural ecosystem services such as recreation, andesthetical values take place in urban green infrastructure; they provide value in the form of improved experiences. These mainly benefit the locals but they may also be important for tourism. Such relations between ecosystem services and tourism have in earlier literature been recognized in rural contexts but very seldom in urban. This paper reports preliminary findings from qualitative case studies in the South of Sweden and Berlin, Germany. They focus on how urban planning projects (primarily aimed at mitigating GHG emissions and adapting to climatechange) can be extended to develop places where experience values for both residents and visitors are created alongside other kinds of ecosystem services. We suggest that the need for climate change adaptation in a city may be used as a means to improve its place specific qualities as a tourist destination. By developing green infrastructure in innovative and environmentally friendly ways, the quality of ecosystem services improves, including those relevant for both visitors and residents. Protecting and building green infrastructure, therebyenhancing a city´s visible qualities and its reputation as a sustainable destination, may also be valuable in marketing the city

I/Q Imbalance in Multiantenna Systems: Modeling, Analysis and RF-Aware Digital Beamforming

Wireless communications has experienced an unprecedented increase in data rates, numbers of active devices and selection of applications during recent years. However, this is expected to be just a start for future developments where a wireless connection is seen as a fundamental resource for almost any electrical device, no matter where and when it is operating. Since current radio technologies cannot provide such services with reasonable costs or even at all, a multitude of technological developments will be needed. One of the most important subjects, in addition to higher bandwidths and flexible network functionalities, is the exploitation of multiple antennas in base stations (BSs) as well as in user equipment (UEs). That kind of multiantenna communications can boost the capacity of an individual UE-BS link through spatial antenna multiplexing and increase the quality as well as robustness of the link via antenna diversity. Multiantenna technologies provide improvements also on the network level through spatial UE multiplexing and sophisticated interference management. Additionally, multiple antennas can provide savings in terms of the dissipated power since transmission and reception can be steered more efficiently in space, and thus power leakage to other directions is decreased. However, several issues need to be considered in order to get multiantenna technologies widely spread. First, antennas and the associated transceiver chains are required to be simple and implementable with low costs. Second, size of the antennas and transceivers need to be minimized. Finally, power consumption of the system must be kept under control. The importance of these requirements is even emphasized when considering massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems consisting of devices equipped with tens or even hundreds of antennas.In this thesis, we consider multiantenna devices where the associated transceiver chains are implemented in such a way that the requirements above can be met. In particular, we focus on the direct-conversion transceiver principle which is seen as a promising radio architecture for multiantenna systems due to its low costs, small size, low power consumption and good flexibility. Whereas these aspects are very promising, direct-conversion transceivers have also some disadvantages and are vulnerable to certain imperfections in the analog radio frequency (RF) electronics in particular. Since the effects of these imperfections usually get even worse when optimizing costs of the devices, the scope of the thesis is on the effects and mitigation of one of the most severe RF imperfection, namely in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) imbalance.Contributions of the thesis can be split into two main themes. First of them is multiantenna narrowband beamforming under transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) I/Q imbalances. We start by creating a model for the signals at the TX and RX, both under I/Q imbalances. Based on these models we derive analytical expressions for the antenna array radiation patterns and notice that I/Q imbalance distorts not only the signals but also the radiation characteristics of the array. After that, stemming from the nature of the distortion, we utilize widely-linear (WL) processing, where the signals and their complex conjugates are processed jointly, for the beamforming task under I/Q imbalance. Such WL processing with different kind of statistical and adaptive beamforming algorithms is finally shown to provide a flexible operation as well as distortion-free signals and radiation patterns when being under various I/Q imbalance schemes.The second theme extends the work to wideband systems utilizing orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)-based waveforms. The focus is on uplink communications and BS RX processing in a multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) scheme where spatial UE multiplexing is applied and further UE multiplexing takes place in frequency domain through the orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) principle. Moreover, we include the effects of external co-channel interference into our analysis in order to model the challenges in heterogeneous networks. We formulate a flexible signal model for a generic uplink scheme where I/Q imbalance occurs on both TX and RX sides. Based on the model, we analyze the signal distortion in frequency domain and develop augmented RX processing methods which process signals at mirror subcarrier pairs jointly. Additionally, the proposed augmented methods are numerically shown to outperform corresponding per-subcarrier method in terms of the instantaneous signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR). Finally, we address some practical aspects and conclude that the augmented processing principle is a promising tool for RX processing in multiantenna wideband systems under I/Q imbalance.The thesis provides important insight for development of future radio networks. In particular, the results can be used as such for implementing digital signal processing (DSP)-based RF impairment mitigation in real world transceivers. Moreover, the results can be used as a starting point for future research concerning, e.g., joint effects of multiple RF impairments and their mitigation in multiantenna systems. Overall, this thesis and the associated publications can help the communications society to reach the ambitious aim of flexible, low-cost and high performance radio networks in the future