Separation Framework: An Enabler for Cooperative and D2D Communication for Future 5G Networks

Soaring capacity and coverage demands dictate that future cellular networks need to soon migrate towards ultra-dense networks. However, network densification comes with a host of challenges that include compromised energy efficiency, complex interference management, cumbersome mobility management, burdensome signaling overheads and higher backhaul costs. Interestingly, most of the problems, that beleaguer network densification, stem from legacy networks' one common feature i.e., tight coupling between the control and data planes regardless of their degree of heterogeneity and cell density. Consequently, in wake of 5G, control and data planes separation architecture (SARC) has recently been conceived as a promising paradigm that has potential to address most of aforementioned challenges. In this article, we review various proposals that have been presented in literature so far to enable SARC. More specifically, we analyze how and to what degree various SARC proposals address the four main challenges in network densification namely: energy efficiency, system level capacity maximization, interference management and mobility management. We then focus on two salient features of future cellular networks that have not yet been adapted in legacy networks at wide scale and thus remain a hallmark of 5G, i.e., coordinated multipoint (CoMP), and device-to-device (D2D) communications. After providing necessary background on CoMP and D2D, we analyze how SARC can particularly act as a major enabler for CoMP and D2D in context of 5G. This article thus serves as both a tutorial as well as an up to date survey on SARC, CoMP and D2D. Most importantly, the article provides an extensive outlook of challenges and opportunities that lie at the crossroads of these three mutually entangled emerging technologies.Comment: 28 pages, 11 figures, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 201

Fog Radio Access Networks: Mobility management, interference mitigation and resource optimization

In order to make Internet connections ubiquitous and autonomous in our daily lives, maximizing the utilization of radio resources and social information is one of the major research topics in future mobile communication technologies. Fog radio access network (FRAN) is regarded as a promising paradigm for the fifth generation (5G) of mobile networks. FRAN integrates fog computing with RAN and makes full use of the edge of networks. FRAN would be different in networking, computing, storage and control as compared with conventional radio access networks (RAN) and the emerging cloud RAN. In this article, we provide a description of the FRAN architecture, and discuss how the distinctive characteristics of FRAN make it possible to efficiently alleviate the burden on the fronthaul, backhaul and backbone networks, as well as reduce content delivery latencies. We will focus on the mobility management, interference mitigation, and resource optimization in FRAN. Our simulation results show that the proposed FRAN architecture and the associated mobility and resource management mechanisms can reduce the signaling cost and increase the net utility for the RAN

Power allocation for cache-aided small-cell networks with limited backhaul

Cache-aided small-cell network is becoming an effective method to improve the transmission rate and reduce the backhaul load. Due to the limited capacity of backhaul, less power should be allocated to users whose requested contents do not exist in the local caches to maximize the performance of caching. In this paper, power allocation is considered to improve the performance of cache-aided small-cell networks with limited backhaul, where interference alignment (IA) is utilized to manage interferences among users. Specifically, three power allocation algorithms are proposed. First, we come up with a power allocation algorithm to maximize the sum transmission rate of the network, considering the limitation of backhaul. Second, in order to have more users meet their rate requirements, a power allocation algorithm to minimizing the average outage probability is also proposed. In addition, in order to further improve the users’ experience, a power allocation algorithm that maximizes the average satisfaction of all the users is also designed. Simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the three proposed power allocation algorithms for cache-aided small-cell networks with limited backhaul

Caching Techniques in Next Generation Cellular Networks

Content caching will be an essential feature in the next generations of cellular networks. Indeed, a network equipped with caching capabilities allows users to retrieve content with reduced access delays and consequently reduces the traffic passing through the network backhaul. However, the deployment of the caching nodes in the network is hindered by the following two challenges. First, the storage space of a cache is limited as well as expensive. So, it is not possible to store in the cache every content that can be possibly requested by the user. This calls for efficient techniques to determine the contents that must be stored in the cache. Second, efficient ways are needed to implement and control the caching node. In this thesis, we investigate caching techniques focussing to address the above-mentioned challenges, so that the overall system performance is increased. In order to tackle the challenge of the limited storage capacity, smart proactive caching strategies are needed. In the context of vehicular users served by edge nodes, we believe a caching strategy should be adapted to the mobility characteristics of the cars. In this regard, we propose a scheme called RICH (RoadsIde CacHe), which optimally caches content at the edge nodes where connected vehicles require it most. In particular, our scheme is designed to ensure in-order delivery of content chunks to end users. Unlike blind popularity decisions, the probabilistic caching used by RICH considers vehicular trajectory predictions as well as content service time by edge nodes. We evaluate our approach on realistic mobility datasets against a popularity-based edge approach called POP, and a mobility-aware caching strategy known as netPredict. In terms of content availability, our RICH edge caching scheme provides an enhancement of up to 33% and 190% when compared with netPredict and POP respectively. At the same time, the backhaul penalty bandwidth is reduced by a factor ranging between 57% and 70%. Caching node is an also a key component in Named Data Networking (NDN) that is an innovative paradigm to provide content based services in future networks. As compared to legacy networks, naming of network packets and in-network caching of content make NDN more feasible for content dissemination. However, the implementation of NDN requires drastic changes to the existing network infrastructure. One feasible approach is to use Software Defined Networking (SDN), according to which the control of the network is delegated to a centralized controller, which configures the forwarding data plane. This approach leads to large signaling overhead as well as large end-to-end (e2e) delays. In order to overcome these issues, in this work, we provide an efficient way to implement and control the NDN node. We propose to enable NDN using a stateful data plane in the SDN network. In particular, we realize the functionality of an NDN node using a stateful SDN switch attached with a local cache for content storage, and use OpenState to implement such an approach. In our solution, no involvement of the controller is required once the OpenState switch has been configured. We benchmark the performance of our solution against the traditional SDN approach considering several relevant metrics. Experimental results highlight the benefits of a stateful approach and of our implementation, which avoids signaling overhead and significantly reduces e2e delays