Design of Coordinated HeNB Deployments

Uncoordinated deployment of HeNBs has been widely considered, in the research community. However, due to economic or physical constraints, a coordinated deployment of HeNBs can also be considered. This work studies a selected examples of HeNB deployment. We consider the deployment of four Enterprise HeNB which serve up to 8 simultaneous users, in a building, with a geometry of 5x5 apartments. From the theoretical study on the average SINR, we have learned that the smaller the apartment areas are the higher the values for the average SINR are. The performance evolution of the system focuses on the values obtained for the average goodput, Packet Loss Ratio (PLR) and delay for the Proportional Fair, Frame Level Scheduler (FLS) and Exponential Rule (EXPRule) schedulers, with users using a video and a best effort flows at the same time. For the video flows the maximum average goodput was obtained with the FLS scheduler, but when the PLR is taken into account the EXPRule present a slight advantage. In the case of the BE flows, the EXPRule present the best performance. But the main lesson learned is that it is possible to operate a coordinated HeNB deployments without setting the transmitter power of the HeNBs to the maximum value, which can be a step to achieve a greener system.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Study of Indoor Small Cell Deployments

This work aims at studying the indoor deployment of small cells, also known as femtocells, to provide coverage to a 5 × 5 grid geometry. The number of deployed HeNBs is 4, 5, or 6. An updated version of LTE-Sim is considered to extract values for Exponential Effective SINR Mapping (EESM), Packet Loss Ratio (PLR), maximum number of supported users, goodput and delay. Results reveal that the use of four HeNBs corresponds to the highest values of EESM. For the considered geometry, 3GPP suggested a maximum of five HeNBs. However, this deployment shows worser performance compared to the topology with four HeNBs. The geometry with six HeNBs is the one with the best overall performance results for the 5 × 5 grid of apartments.COST CA 15104 IRACON, ORCIP (22141-01/SAICT/2016), TeamUp5G and CONQUEST (CMU/ECE/0030/2017)info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Performance Evaluation and Packet Scheduling in HeNB Deployments

The unsupervised and chaotic deployment of Home eNBs (HeNBs) is leading to high levels of interference. To understand the behaviour of the interference of these uncoordinated deployments is vital to reach significant capacity improvement and also to explore opportunities to save energy. This paper considers high and middle interference level scenarios, with a maximum of four users per cell. HeNBs indoor deployed is considered within building. We theoretically analyse the traffic performance of this scenario through the study of the Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio (SINR). Through the use of the LTE-Sim simulator one obtains the quality indicators for two flows that are being utilised by the users. Video and best effort are studied, while varying the transmitter power and the areas of the apartments. The achieved SINR is higher (around 10 dBm) when the area of the cells is smaller. The variation of the transmitter power of the HeNBs does not present any significant impact. Noticeable throughout the simulations is observed that is possible to operate the system without setting the transmitter power of HeNBs to the maximum value at both interference levels. Simulation results also show that with the considered flows is possible to serve the maximum number of four users per HeNB with high quality. This statement is confirmed by the maximum achieved Packet Loss Ratio for video with a value of value of 1.6 %, which is lower than the maximum of 2 % indicated by the 3GPP. Taking into account the obtained results it is possible to promote a reduction in energy consumption of the HeNBs without penalizing the service quality.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Network virtualization in next generation cellular networks

The complexity of operation and management of emerging cellular networks significantly increases, as they evolve to correspond to increasing QoS needs, data rates and diversity of offered services. Thus critical challenges appear regarding their performance. At the same time, network sustainability pushes toward the utilization of haring Radio Access Network (RAN) infrastructure between Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). This requires advanced network management techniques which have to be developed based on characteristics of these networks and traffic demands. Therefore it is necessary to provide solutions enabling the creation of logically isolated network partitions over shared physical network infrastructure. Multiple heterogeneous virtual networks should simultaneously coexist and support resource aggregation so as to appear as a single resource to serve different traffic types on demand. Hence in this thesis, we study RAN virtualization and slicing solutions destined to tackle these challenges. In the first part, we present our approach to map virtual network elements onto radio resources of the substrate physical network, in a dense multi-tier LTE-A scenario owned by a MNO. We propose a virtualization solution at BS level, where baseband modules of distributed BSs, interconnected via logical point-to-point X2 interface, cooperate to reallocate radio resources on a traffic need basis. Our proposal enhances system performance by achieving 53% throughput gain compared with benchmark schemes without substantial signaling overhead. In the second part of the thesis, we concentrate on facilitating resource provisioning between multiple Virtual MNOs (MVNOs), by integrating the capacity broker in the 3GPP network management architecture with minimum set of enhancements. A MNO owns the network and provides RAN access on demand to several MVNOs. Furthermore we propose an algorithm for on-demand resource allocation considering two types of traffic. Our proposal achieves 50% more admitted requests without Service Level Agreement (SLA) violation compared with benchmark schemes. In the third part, we devise and study a solution for BS agnostic network slicing leveraging BS virtualization in a multi-tenant scenario. This scenario is composed of different traffic types (e.g., tight latency requirements and high data rate demands) along with BSs characterized by different access and transport capabilities (i.e., Remote Radio Heads, RRHs, Small Cells, SCs and future 5G NodeBs, gNBs with various functional splits having ideal and non-ideal transport network). Our solution achieves 67% average spectrum usage gain and 16.6% Baseband Unit processing load reduction compared with baseline scenarios. Finally, we conclude the thesis by providing insightful research challenges for future works.La complejidad de la operación y la gestión de las emergentes redes celulares aumenta a medida que evolucionan para hacer frente a las crecientes necesidades de calidad de servicio (QoS), las tasas de datos y la diversidad de los servicios ofrecidos. De esta forma aparecen desafíos críticos con respecto a su rendimiento. Al mismo tiempo, la sostenibilidad de la red empuja hacia la utilización de la infraestructura de red de acceso radio (RAN) compartida entre operadores de redes móviles (MNO). Esto requiere técnicas avanzadas de gestión de redes que deben desarrollarse en función de las características especiales de estas redes y las demandas de tráfico. Por lo tanto, es necesario proporcionar soluciones que permitan la creación de particiones de red aisladas lógicamente sobre la infraestructura de red física compartida. Para ello, en esta tesis, estudiamos las soluciones de virtualización de la RAN destinadas a abordar estos desafíos. En la primera parte de la tesis, nos centramos en mapear elementos de red virtual en recursos de radio de la red física, en un escenario LTE-A de múltiples niveles que es propiedad de un solo MNO. Proponemos una solución de virtualización a nivel de estación base (BS), donde los módulos de banda base de BSs distribuidas, interconectadas a través de la interfaz lógica X2, cooperan para reasignar los recursos radio en función de las necesidades de tráfico. Nuestra propuesta mejora el rendimiento del sistema al obtener un rendimiento 53% en comparación con esquemas de referencia. En la segunda parte de la tesis, nos concentramos en facilitar el aprovisionamiento de recursos entre muchos operadores de redes virtuales móviles (MVNO), al integrar el capacity broker en la arquitectura de administración de red 3GPP con un conjunto míinimo de mejoras. En este escenario, un MNO es el propietario de la red y proporciona acceso bajo demanda (en inglés on-demand) a varios MVNOs. Además, para aprovechar al máximo las capacidades del capacity broker, proponemos un algoritmo para la asignación de recursos bajo demanda, considerando dos tipos de tráfico con distintas características. Nuestra propuesta alcanza 50% más de solicitudes admitidas sin violación del Acuerdo de Nivel de Servicio (SLA) en comparación con otros esquemas. En la tercera parte de la tesis, estudiamos una solución para el slicing de red independiente del tipo de BS, considerando la virtualización de BS en un escenario de múltiples MVNOs (multi-tenants). Este escenario se compone de diferentes tipos de tráfico (por ejemplo, usuarios con requisitos de latencia estrictos y usuarios con altas demandas de velocidad de datos) junto con BSs caracterizadas por diferentes capacidades de acceso y transporte (por ejemplo, Remote Radio Heads, RRHs, Small cells, SC y 5G NodeBs, gNBs con varias divisiones funcionales que tienen una red de transporte ideal y no ideal). Nuestra solución logra una ganancia promedio de uso de espectro de 67% y una reducción de la carga de procesamiento de la banda base de 16.6% en comparación con escenarios de referencia. Finalmente, concluimos la tesis al proporcionando los desafíos y retos de investigación para trabajos futuros.Postprint (published version