Advanced Technologies Enabling Unlicensed Spectrum Utilization in Cellular Networks

As the rapid progress and pleasant experience of Internet-based services, there is an increasing demand for high data rate in wireless communications systems. Unlicensed spectrum utilization in Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks is a promising technique to meet the massive traffic demand. There are two effective methods to use unlicensed bands for delivering LTE traffic. One is offloading LTE traffic toWi-Fi. An alternative method is LTE-unlicensed (LTE-U), which aims to directly use LTE protocols and infrastructures over the unlicensed spectrum. It has also been pointed out that addressing the above two methods simultaneously could further improve the system performance. However, how to avoid severe performance degradation of the Wi-Fi network is a challenging issue of utilizing unlicensed spectrum in LTE networks. Specifically, first, the inter-system spectrum sharing, or, more specifically, the coexistence of LTE andWi-Fi in the same unlicensed spectrum is the major challenge of implementing LTE-U. Second, to use the LTE and Wi-Fi integration approach, mobile operators have to manage two disparate networks in licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Third, optimization for joint data offloading to Wi-Fi and LTE-U in multi- cell scenarios poses more challenges because inter-cell interference must be addressed. This thesis focuses on solving problems related to these challenges. First, the effect of bursty traffic in an LTE and Wi-Fi aggregation (LWA)-enabled network has been investigated. To enhance resource efficiency, the Wi-Fi access point (AP) is designed to operate in both the native mode and the LWA mode simultaneously. Specifically, the LWA-modeWi-Fi AP cooperates with the LTE base station (BS) to transmit bearers to the LWA user, which aggregates packets from both LTE and Wi-Fi. The native-mode Wi-Fi AP transmits Wi-Fi packets to those native Wi-Fi users that are not with LWA capability. This thesis proposes a priority-based Wi-Fi transmission scheme with congestion control and studied the throughput of the native Wi-Fi network, as well as the LWA user delay when the native Wi-Fi user is under heavy traffic conditions. The results provide fundamental insights in the throughput and delay behavior of the considered network. Second, the above work has been extended to larger topologies. A stochastic geometry model has been used to model and analyze the performance of an MPTCP Proxy-based LWA network with intra-tier and cross-tier dependence. Under the considered network model and the activation conditions of LWA-mode Wi-Fi, this thesis has obtained three approximations for the density of active LWA-mode Wi-Fi APs through different approaches. Tractable analysis is provided for the downlink (DL) performance evaluation of large-scale LWA networks. The impact of different parameters on the network performance have been analyzed, validating the significant gain of using LWA in terms of boosted data rate and improved spectrum reuse. Third, this thesis also takes a significant step of analyzing joint multi-cell LTE-U and Wi-Fi network, while taking into account different LTE-U and Wi-Fi inter-working schemes. In particular, two technologies enabling data offloading from LTE to Wi-Fi are considered, including LWA and Wi-Fi offloading in the context of the power gain-based user offloading scheme. The LTE cells in this work are subject to load-coupling due to inter-cell interference. New system frameworks for maximizing the demand scaling factor for all users in both Wi-Fi and multi-cell LTE networks have been proposed. The potential of networks is explored in achieving optimal capacity with arbitrary topologies, accounting for both resource limits and inter-cell interference. Theoretical analyses have been proposed for the proposed optimization problems, resulting in algorithms that achieve global optimality. Numerical results show the algorithms’ effectiveness and benefits of joint use of data offloading and the direct use of LTE over the unlicensed band. All the derived results in this thesis have been validated by Monte Carlo simulations in Matlab, and the conclusions observed from the results can provide guidelines for the future unlicensed spectrum utilization in LTE networks

Measurement and Optimization of LTE Performance

4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile system is the fourth generation communication system adopted worldwide to provide high-speed data connections and high-quality voice calls. Given the recent deployment by mobile service providers, unlike GSM and UMTS, LTE can be still considered to be in its early stages and therefore many topics still raise great interest among the international scientific research community: network performance assessment, network optimization, selective scheduling, interference management and coexistence with other communication systems in the unlicensed band, methods to evaluate human exposure to electromagnetic radiation are, as a matter of fact, still open issues. In this work techniques adopted to increase LTE radio performances are investigated. One of the most wide-spread solutions proposed by the standard is to implement MIMO techniques and within a few years, to overcome the scarcity of spectrum, LTE network operators will offload data traffic by accessing the unlicensed 5 GHz frequency. Our Research deals with an evaluation of 3GPP standard in a real test best scenario to evaluate network behavior and performance

Cellular and Wi-Fi technologies evolution: from complementarity to competition

This PhD thesis has the characteristic to span over a long time because while working on it, I was working as a research engineer at CTTC with highly demanding development duties. This has delayed the deposit more than I would have liked. On the other hand, this has given me the privilege of witnessing and studying how wireless technologies have been evolving over a decade from 4G to 5G and beyond. When I started my PhD thesis, IEEE and 3GPP were defining the two main wireless technologies at the time, Wi-Fi and LTE, for covering two substantially complementary market targets. Wi-Fi was designed to operate mostly indoor, in unlicensed spectrum, and was aimed to be a simple and cheap technology. Its primary technology for coexistence was based on the assumption that the spectrum on which it was operating was for free, and so it was designed with interference avoidance through the famous CSMA/CA protocol. On the other hand, 3GPP was designing technologies for licensed spectrum, a costly kind of spectrum. As a result, LTE was designed to take the best advantage of it while providing the best QoE in mainly outdoor scenarios. The PhD thesis starts in this context and evolves with these two technologies. In the first chapters, the thesis studies radio resource management solutions for standalone operation of Wi-Fi in unlicensed and LTE in licensed spectrum. We anticipated the now fundamental machine learning trend by working on machine learning-based radio resource management solutions to improve LTE and Wi-Fi operation in their respective spectrum. We pay particular attention to small cell deployments aimed at improving the spectrum efficiency in licensed spectrum, reproducing small range scenarios typical of Wi-Fi settings. IEEE and 3GPP followed evolving the technologies over the years: Wi-Fi has grown into a much more complex and sophisticated technology, incorporating the key features of cellular technologies, like HARQ, OFDMA, MU-MIMO, MAC scheduling and spatial reuse. On the other hand, since Release 13, cellular networks have also been designed for unlicensed spectrum. As a result, the two last chapters of this thesis focus on coexistence scenarios, in which LTE needs to be designed to coexist with Wi-Fi fairly, and NR, the radio access for 5G, with Wi-Fi in 5 GHz and WiGig in 60 GHz. Unlike LTE, which was adapted to operate in unlicensed spectrum, NR-U is natively designed with this feature, including its capability to operate in unlicensed in a complete standalone fashion, a fundamental new milestone for cellular. In this context, our focus of analysis changes. We consider that these two technological families are no longer targeting complementarity but are now competing, and we claim that this will be the trend for the years to come. To enable the research in these multi-RAT scenarios, another fundamental result of this PhD thesis, besides the scientific contributions, is the release of high fidelity models for LTE and NR and their coexistence with Wi-Fi and WiGig to the ns-3 open-source community. ns-3 is a popular open-source network simulator, with the characteristic to be multi-RAT and so naturally allows the evaluation of coexistence scenarios between different technologies. These models, for which I led the development, are by academic citations, the most used open-source simulation models for LTE and NR and havereceived fundings from industry (Ubiquisys, WFA, SpiderCloud, Interdigital, Facebook) and federal agencies (NIST, LLNL) over the years.Aquesta tesi doctoral té la característica d’allargar-se durant un llarg període de temps ja que mentre treballava en ella, treballava com a enginyera investigadora a CTTC amb tasques de desenvolupament molt exigents. Això ha endarrerit el dipositar-la més del que m’hagués agradat. D’altra banda, això m’ha donat el privilegi de ser testimoni i estudiar com han evolucionat les tecnologies sense fils durant més d’una dècada des del 4G fins al 5G i més enllà. Quan vaig començar la tesi doctoral, IEEE i 3GPP estaven definint les dues tecnologies sense fils principals en aquell moment, Wi-Fi i LTE, que cobreixen dos objectius de mercat substancialment complementaris. Wi-Fi va ser dissenyat per funcionar principalment en interiors, en espectre sense llicència, i pretenia ser una tecnologia senzilla i barata. La seva tecnologia primària per a la convivència es basava en el supòsit que l’espectre en el que estava operant era de franc, i, per tant, es va dissenyar simplement evitant interferències a través del famós protocol CSMA/CA. D’altra banda, 3GPP estava dissenyant tecnologies per a espectres amb llicència, un tipus d’espectre costós. Com a resultat, LTE està dissenyat per treure’n el màxim profit alhora que proporciona el millor QoE en escenaris principalment a l’aire lliure. La tesi doctoral comença amb aquest context i evoluciona amb aquestes dues tecnologies. En els primers capítols, estudiem solucions de gestió de recursos de radio per a operacions en espectre de Wi-Fi sense llicència i LTE amb llicència. Hem anticipat l’actual tendència fonamental d’aprenentatge automàtic treballant solucions de gestió de recursos de radio basades en l’aprenentatge automàtic per millorar l’LTE i Wi-Fi en el seu espectre respectiu. Prestem especial atenció als desplegaments de cèl·lules petites destinades a millorar la eficiència d’espectre llicenciat, reproduint escenaris de petit abast típics de la configuració Wi-Fi. IEEE i 3GPP van seguir evolucionant les tecnologies al llarg dels anys: El Wi-Fi s’ha convertit en una tecnologia molt més complexa i sofisticada, incorporant les característiques clau de les tecnologies cel·lulars, com ara HARQ i la reutilització espacial. D’altra banda, des de la versió 13, també s’han dissenyat xarxes cel·lulars per a espectre sense llicència. Com a resultat, els dos darrers capítols d’aquesta tesi es centren en aquests escenaris de convivència, on s’ha de dissenyar LTE per conviure amb la Wi-Fi de manera justa, i NR, l’accés a la radio per a 5G amb Wi-Fi a 5 GHz i WiGig a 60 GHz. A diferència de LTE, que es va adaptar per funcionar en espectre sense llicència, NR-U està dissenyat de forma nativa amb aquesta característica, inclosa la seva capacitat per operar sense llicència de forma autònoma completa, una nova fita fonamental per al mòbil. En aquest context, el nostre focus d’anàlisi canvia. Considerem que aquestes dues famílies de tecnologia ja no estan orientades cap a la complementarietat, sinó que ara competeixen, i afirmem que aquesta serà el tendència per als propers anys. Per permetre la investigació en aquests escenaris multi-RAT, un altre resultat fonamental d’aquesta tesi doctoral, a més de les aportacions científiques, és l’alliberament de models d’alta fidelitat per a LTE i NR i la seva coexistència amb Wi-Fi a la comunitat de codi obert ns-3. ns-3 és un popular simulador de xarxa de codi obert, amb la característica de ser multi-RAT i, per tant, permet l’avaluació de manera natural d’escenaris de convivència entre diferents tecnologies. Aquests models, pels quals he liderat el desenvolupament, són per cites acadèmiques, els models de simulació de codi obert més utilitzats per a LTE i NR i que han rebut finançament de la indústria (Ubiquisys, WFA, SpiderCloud, Interdigital, Facebook) i agències federals (NIST, LLNL) al llarg dels anys.Esta tesis doctoral tiene la característica de extenderse durante mucho tiempo porque mientras trabajaba en ella, trabajaba como ingeniera de investigación en CTTC con tareas de desarrollo muy exigentes. Esto ha retrasado el depósito más de lo que me hubiera gustado. Por otro lado, gracias a ello, he tenido el privilegio de presenciar y estudiar como las tecnologías inalámbricas han evolucionado durante una década, de 4G a 5G y más allá. Cuando comencé mi tesis doctoral, IEEE y 3GPP estaban definiendo las dos principales tecnologías inalámbricas en ese momento, Wi-Fi y LTE, cumpliendo dos objetivos de mercado sustancialmente complementarios. Wi-Fi fue diseñado para funcionar principalmente en interiores, en un espectro sin licencia, y estaba destinado a ser una tecnología simple y barata. Su tecnología primaria para la convivencia se basaba en el supuesto en que el espectro en el que estaba operando era gratis, y así fue diseñado simplemente evitando interferencias a través del famoso protocolo CSMA/CA. Por otro lado, 3GPP estaba diseñando tecnologías para espectro con licencia, un tipo de espectro costoso. Como resultado, LTE está diseñado para aprovechar el espectro al máximo proporcionando al mismo tiempo el mejor QoE en escenarios principalmente al aire libre. La tesis doctoral parte de este contexto y evoluciona con estas dos tecnologías. En los primeros capítulos, estudiamos las soluciones de gestión de recursos de radio para operación en espectro Wi-Fi sin licencia y LTE con licencia. Anticipamos la tendencia ahora fundamental de aprendizaje automático trabajando en soluciones de gestión de recursos de radio para mejorar LTE y funcionamiento deWi-Fi en su respectivo espectro. Prestamos especial atención a las implementaciones de células pequeñas destinadas a mejorar la eficiencia de espectro licenciado, reproduciendo los típicos escenarios de rango pequeño de la configuración Wi-Fi. IEEE y 3GPP siguieron evolucionando las tecnologías a lo largo de los años: Wi-Fi se ha convertido en una tecnología mucho más compleja y sofisticada, incorporando las características clave de las tecnologías celulares, como HARQ, OFDMA, MU-MIMO, MAC scheduling y la reutilización espacial. Por otro lado, desde la Release 13, también se han diseñado redes celulares para espectro sin licencia. Como resultado, los dos últimos capítulos de esta tesis se centran en estos escenarios de convivencia, donde LTE debe diseñarse para coexistir con Wi-Fi de manera justa, y NR, el acceso por radio para 5G con Wi-Fi en 5 GHz y WiGig en 60 GHz. A diferencia de LTE, que se adaptó para operar en espectro sin licencia, NR-U está diseñado de forma nativa con esta función, incluyendo su capacidad para operar sin licencia de forma completamente independiente, un nuevo hito fundamental para los celulares. En este contexto, cambia nuestro enfoque de análisis. Consideramos que estas dos familias tecnológicas ya no tienen como objetivo la complementariedad, sino que ahora están compitiendo, y afirmamos que esta será la tendencia para los próximos años. Para permitir la investigación en estos escenarios de múltiples RAT, otro resultado fundamental de esta tesis doctoral, además de los aportes científicos, es el lanzamiento de modelos de alta fidelidad para LTE y NR y su coexistencia con Wi-Fi y WiGig a la comunidad de código abierto de ns-3. ns-3 es un simulador popular de red de código abierto, con la característica de ser multi-RAT y así, naturalmente, permite la evaluación de escenarios de convivencia entre diferentes tecnologías. Estos modelos, para los cuales lideré el desarrollo, son por citas académicas, los modelos de simulación de código abierto más utilizados para LTE y NR y han recibido fondos de la industria (Ubiquisys, WFA, SpiderCloud, Interdigital, Facebook) y agencias federales (NIST, LLNL) a lo largo de los años.Postprint (published version

셀룰러 사이드링크 성능 향상을 위한 상위계층 기법

학위논문 (박사) -- 서울대학교 대학원 : 공과대학 전기·정보공학부, 2020. 8. 박세웅.In typical cellular communications, User Equipments (UEs) have always had to go through a Base Station (BS) to communicate with each other, e.g., a UE transmits a packet to a BS via uplink and then the BS transmits the packet to another UE via downlink. Although the communication method can serve UEs efficiently, the communication method can cause latency problems and overload problems in BS. Thus, sidelink has been proposed to overcome these problems in 3GPP release 12. Through sidelink, UEs can communicate directly with each other. There are two representative communications using sidelink, i.e., Device-to-Device (D2D) communication and Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication. In this dissertation, we consider three strategies to enhance the performances of D2D and V2V communications: (i) efficient feedback mechanism for D2D communications, (ii) context-aware congestion control scheme for V2V communication, and (iii) In-Device Coexistence (IDC)-aware LTE and NR sidelink resource allocation scheme. Firstly, in the related standard, there is no feedback mechanism for D2D communication because D2D communications only support broadcast-type communications. A feedback mechanism is presented for D2D communications. Through our proposed mechanism, UEs can use the feedback mechanism without the help of BS and UEs do not need additional signals to allocate feedback resources. We also propose a rate adaptation algorithm, which consider in-band emission problem, on top of the proposed feedback mechanism. We find that our rate adaptation achieves higher and stable throughput compared with the legacy scheme that complies to the standard. Secondly, we propose a context-aware congestion control scheme for LTE-V2V communication. Through LTE-V2V communication, UEs transmit Cooperative Awareness Message (CAM), which is a periodic message, and Decentralized Environmental Notification Message (DENM), which is a event-driven message and allows one-hop relay. The above two messages have different characteristics and generation rule. Thus, it is difficult and inefficient to apply the same congestion control scheme to two messages. We propose a congestion control schemes for each message. Through the proposed congestion control schemes, UEs decide whether to transmit according to their situation. Through simulation results, we show that our proposed schemes outperform comparison schemes as well as the legacy scheme. Finally, we propose a NR sidelink resource allocation scheme based on multi-agent reinforcement learning, which awares a IDC problem between LTE and NR in Intelligent Transport System (ITS) band. First, we model a realistic IDC interference based on spectrum emission mask specified at the standard. Then, we formulate the resource allocation as a multi-agent reinforcement learning with fingerprint method. Each UE achieves its local observation and rewards, and learns its policy to increase its rewards through updating Q-network. Through simulation results, we observe that the proposed resource allocation scheme further improves Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR) performances compared to the legacy scheme.전형적인 셀룰러 통신에서는, 단말들은 서로 통신하기 위해 항상 기지국을 거쳐야 한다. 예를 들면, 단말이 uplink를 통해 기지국에게 패킷을 전송한 다음 기지국은 downlink를 통해 해당 패킷을 전송해준다. 이러한 통신방식은 단말들에게 효율적으로 서비스를 제공할 수 있지만, 상황에 따라서는 지연문제와 기지국의 과부하 문제를 야기할 수 있다. 따라서 3GPP release12에서 이러한 문제점들을 극복하기 위해 sidelink가 제안되었다. 덕분에 단말들은 sidelink를 통해서 서로 직접 통신을 할 수 있게 되었다. Sidelink를 사용하는 두 가지 대표적인 통신은 D2D(Device-to-Device) 통신과 V2V(Vehicle-to-Vehicle) 통신이다. 본 논문에서는 D2D 와 V2V 통신 성능을 향상시키기 위한 세가지 전략을 고려한다. (i) D2D 통신을 위한 효율적인 피드백 메커니즘, (ii) V2V 통신을 위한 상황인식기반 혼잡제어 기법, 그리고 (iii) IDC(In-Device Coexistence) 인지 기반 sidelink 자원 할당 방식. 첫째, 관련 표준에는 D2D 통신이 브로드캐스트 유형의 통신만을 지원하기 때문에 D2D 통신에 대한 피드백 메커니즘이 없다. 우리는 이러한 한계점을 극복하고자 D2D 통신을 위한 피드백 메커니즘을 제안한다. 제안된 메커니즘을 통해, 단말은 기지국의 도움없이 피드백 메커니즘을 사용할 수 있으며 피드백 자원을 할당하기 위한 추가 신호를 필요로 하지 않는다. 우리는 또한 제안된 피드백 메커니즘위에서 동작할 수 있는 data rate 조절 기법을 제안하였다. 우리는 시뮬레이션 결과를 통하여, 제안한 data rate 조절 기법이 기존 방식보다 더 높고 안정적인 수율을 제공하는 것을 확인하였다. 둘째, LTE-V2V 통신을 위한 상황 인지 기반 혼잡 제어 기법을 제안한다. LTE-V2V 통신에서 단말들은 주기적인 메시지인 CAM(Cooperative Awareness Message) 및 비주기적 메시지이며 one-hop릴레이를 허용하는 DENM(Decentralized Environmental Notification Message)를 전송한다. 위의 두 메시지는 특성과 생성 규칙이 다르기 때문에 동일한 혼잡 제어 기법을 적용하는 것은 비효율적이다. 따라서 우리는 각 메시지에 적용할 수 있는 혼잡 제어 기법들을 제안한다. 제안된 기법들을 통해서 단말들은 그들의 상황에 따라서 전송 여부를 결정하게 된다. 시뮬레이션 결과를 통해 제안된 기법이 기존 표준 방식 뿐만 아니라 최신의 비교 기법들보다 우수한 성능을 얻는 것을 확인하였다. 마지막으로 ITS(Intelligent Transport System)대역에서 LTE와 NR사이의 IDC문제를 고려하는 NR sidelink 자원할당 기법을 제안한다. 먼저, 표준에 지정된 스펙트럼 방출 마스크를 기반으로 현실적인 IDC 간섭을 모델링한다. 그런 다음 다중 에이전트 강화학습으로 자원할당 기법을 제안한다. 각 단말들은 자신들의 주변 환경을 관측하고 관측된 환경을 기반으로 행동하여 보상을 얻고 Q-network을 자신의 보상을 증가시키도록 정책을 업데이트 및 학습한다. 우리는 시뮬레이션 결과를 통하여 제안된 자원할당 박식이 기존기법 대비하여 PDR(Packet Delivery Ratio) 성능을 향상시키는 것을 확인하였다.Introduction 1 Efficient feedback mechanism for LTE-D2D Communication 8 CoCo: Context-aware congestion control scheme for C-V2X communications 35 IDC-aware resource allocation based on multi-agents reinforcement learning 67 Concluding remarks 84 Abstract(In Korean) 96 감사의 글 99Docto

Radiorinnakkaisuussimulaattori

Simulation is commonly used to study complex systems without having to observe the actual systems, which might be difficult to observe or which might not even exist yet. Simulating in advance is very valuable, as such systems can be extremely expensive and could take a long time to build. One example of such a system is a cellular handset that utilizes new radio technology. We built a light-weight discrete-event simulator to study the in-device radio coexistence (IDC) problem, which arises when different radios in the same device interfere each other. We studied IDC especially in the context of 3GPP LTE and the 802.11 family of wireless LAN. The use of simulation was motivated by both the need for rapid experimentation with different mitigation strategies and, at the time, the absence of commercial hardware with the required capabilities. The simulator was successfully used to build a detailed model comprising of a mobile multi-radio device in combination with an LTE base station (eNodeB) and a WLAN access point. The model was then used to develop several coexistence strategies that were measured to improve radio throughput and spectral efficiency due to a decreased amount of failed transmissions due to interference. The developed strategies led to academic publications and two patents.Simulaatiota käytetään yleisesti monimutkaisten järjestelmien tutkintaan ilman, että tarvitsee havainnoida todellisia järjestelmiä, joiden havainnointi saattaa olla haastavaa, tai joita ei voida lainkaan havainnoida koska ne eivät ole vielä edes olemassa. Simulointi etukäteen on hyvin arvokasta, koska monet järjestelmät saattavat olla äärimmäisen kalliita ja pitkäkestoisia rakentaa. Yksi esimerkki tällaisesta järjestelmästä on matkapuhelin, joka käyttää uutta radioteknologiaa. Kehitimme kevyen diskreetin tapahtumasimulaattorin tutkiaksemme laitteen sisäisen radiorinnakkaisuuden (in-device radio coexistence, IDC) ongelmaa, joka syntyy saman laitteen eri radioiden häiritessä toisiaan. Tutkimme ongelmaa erityisesti 3GPP LTE:n ja 802.11 -perheen langattomien lähiverkkoprotokollien yhteydessä. Simulaation käyttöä tutkimiseen motivoi sekä tarve tehdä nopeita kokeita lievennysstrategioilla että sellaisten kaupallisten laitteiden puute, joissa olisi ollut tarvittavat ominaisuudet. Simulaattoria käytettiin onnistuneesti yksityiskohtaisen mallin luomiseen, joka käsitti moniradioisen mobiililaitteen yhdistettynä LTE- ja WLAN-tukiasemiin. Mallia käytettiin useiden rinnakkaisuusstrategioiden kehitykseen, joiden mitattiin parantavan radioiden kokonaissuoritustehoa ja spektritehokkuutta pienentyneen siirtovirheiden määrän vuoksi. Kehitetyt strategiat johtivat sekä akateemisiin julkaisuihin että kahteen patenttiin

Towards More Efficient 5G Networks via Dynamic Traffic Scheduling

Department of Electrical EngineeringThe 5G communications adopt various advanced technologies such as mobile edge computing and unlicensed band operations, to meet the goal of 5G services such as enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) and Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC). Specifically, by placing the cloud resources at the edge of the radio access network, so-called mobile edge cloud, mobile devices can be served with lower latency compared to traditional remote-cloud based services. In addition, by utilizing unlicensed spectrum, 5G can mitigate the scarce spectrum resources problem thus leading to realize higher throughput services. To enhance user-experienced service quality, however, aforementioned approaches should be more fine-tuned by considering various network performance metrics altogether. For instance, the mechanisms for mobile edge computing, e.g., computation offloading to the edge cloud, should not be optimized in a specific metric's perspective like latency, since actual user satisfaction comes from multi-domain factors including latency, throughput, monetary cost, etc. Moreover, blindly combining unlicensed spectrum resources with licensed ones does not always guarantee the performance enhancement, since it is crucial for unlicensed band operations to achieve peaceful but efficient coexistence with other competing technologies (e.g., Wi-Fi). This dissertation proposes a focused resource management framework for more efficient 5G network operations as follows. First, Quality-of-Experience is adopted to quantify user satisfaction in mobile edge computing, and the optimal transmission scheduling algorithm is derived to maximize user QoE in computation offloading scenarios. Next, regarding unlicensed band operations, two efficient mechanisms are introduced to improve the coexistence performance between LTE-LAA and Wi-Fi networks. In particular, we develop a dynamic energy-detection thresholding algorithm for LTE-LAA so that LTE-LAA devices can detect Wi-Fi frames in a lightweight way. In addition, we propose AI-based network configuration for an LTE-LAA network with which an LTE-LAA operator can fine-tune its coexistence parameters (e.g., CAA threshold) to better protect coexisting Wi-Fi while achieving enhanced performance than the legacy LTE-LAA in the standards. Via extensive evaluations using computer simulations and a USRP-based testbed, we have verified that the proposed framework can enhance the efficiency of 5G.clos