COMMUNICATION IN SMART GRIDS USING LTE

The world today is focusing on the enhancement of efficient use of energy and it has compelled the energy industry to research and seek for measures for increasing energy efficiency. Out of various fields related to energy, Smart Grid has emerged itself as one of the effective contributor to fulfill the approach of efficient use of energy. The term smart grid has been evolved from power grid where the energy is generated, distributed and finally consumed by a consumer. The smart form of this power grid is actually smart grid which facilitates smart way of communication of smart devices between grids, so that the effective mode of controlling and monitoring can be achieved. In order to achieve this, the devices should be smart enough so that they can be interoperable and remotely accessed. For the smart devices to communicate in real time so that controlling and remote access becomes possible, it demands an advanced communicating medium. LTE is one of the most challenging, famous and widely adopted communication technology that meets the requirement imposed by broadband wireless mobile communications. Early tests, evaluations and their pre-commercial deployments have proved that they fulfil all the requirements like high-data-rate, low latency and optimized system that advanced communication demands. Thus, this paper focuses on the evaluation of integration of LTE in Smart Grids so that automation in Smart Grids can be achieved.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Software-Driven and Virtualized Architectures for Scalable 5G Networks

In this dissertation, we argue that it is essential to rearchitect 4G cellular core networks–sitting between the Internet and the radio access network–to meet the scalability, performance, and flexibility requirements of 5G networks. Today, there is a growing consensus among operators and research community that software-defined networking (SDN), network function virtualization (NFV), and mobile edge computing (MEC) paradigms will be the key ingredients of the next-generation cellular networks. Motivated by these trends, we design and optimize three core network architectures, SoftMoW, SoftBox, and SkyCore, for different network scales, objectives, and conditions. SoftMoW provides global control over nationwide core networks with the ultimate goal of enabling new routing and mobility optimizations. SoftBox attempts to enhance policy enforcement in statewide core networks to enable low-latency, signaling-efficient, and customized services for mobile devices. Sky- Core is aimed at realizing a compact core network for citywide UAV-based radio networks that are going to serve first responders in the future. Network slicing techniques make it possible to deploy these solutions on the same infrastructure in parallel. To better support mobility and provide verifiable security, these architectures can use an addressing scheme that separates network locations and identities with self-certifying, flat and non-aggregatable address components. To benefit the proposed architectures, we designed a high-speed and memory-efficient router, called Caesar, for this type of addressing schemePHDComputer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146130/1/moradi_1.pd

Impacto das comunicações M2M em redes celulares de telecomunicações

Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica e de TelecomunicaçõesAs comunicações Máquina-Máquina (M2M) apresentam um crescimento muito significativo e algumas projeções apontam para que esta tendência se acentue drasticamente ao longo dos próximos anos. O tráfego gerado por este tipo de comunicações tem caraterísticas muito diferentes do tráfego de dados, ou voz, que atualmente circula nas redes celulares de telecomunicações. Assim, é fundamental estudar as caraterísticas dos tipos de tráfego associados com comunicações M2M, por forma a compreender os efeitos que tais caraterísticas podem provocar nas redes celulares de telecomunicações. Esta dissertação procura identificar e estudar algumas das caraterísticas do tráfego M2M, com especial enfoque na sinalização gerada por serviços M2M. Como resultado principal deste trabalho surge o desenvolvimento de modelos que permitem a construção de uma ferramenta analítica de orquestração de serviços e análise de rede. Esta ferramenta permite orquestrar serviços e modelar padrões de tráfego numa rede UMTS, possibilitando uma análise simultânea aos efeitos produzidos no segmento core da mesma rede. Ao longo deste trabalho procura-se que a abordagem aos problemas apresentados permita que os resultados obtidos sejam válidos, ou adaptáveis, num âmbito mais abrangente do que apenas as comunicações M2M.Machine to Machine (M2M) communications present significant growth and some projections indicate that this trend is going to increase dramatically over the coming years. The traffic generated by this type of communication has very different characteristics when compared to data or voice traffic currently going through cellular telecommunications networks. Thus, it is essential to study the characteristics of traffic associated with M2M communications in order to understand the effects that its features can imply to cellular telecommunications networks. This dissertation tries to identify and study some of the characteristics of M2M traffic, with particular focus on signaling generated by M2M services. A number of models, that enable the development of an analytic tool for service orchestration and network analysis, are presented. This tool enables service orchestration and traffic modeling on a UMTS network, with simultaneous visualization of the impacts on the core of such network. The work presented in this document seeks to approach the problems at study in ways ensuring that its outcomes are valid for a wider scope than just M2M communications

Quadri-dimensional approach for data analytics in mobile networks

The telecommunication market is growing at a very fast pace with the evolution of new technologies to support high speed throughput and the availability of a wide range of services and applications in the mobile networks. This has led to a need for communication service providers (CSPs) to shift their focus from network elements monitoring towards services monitoring and subscribers’ satisfaction by introducing the service quality management (SQM) and the customer experience management (CEM) that require fast responses to reduce the time to find and solve network problems, to ensure efficiency and proactive maintenance, to improve the quality of service (QoS) and the quality of experience (QoE) of the subscribers. While both the SQM and the CEM demand multiple information from different interfaces, managing multiple data sources adds an extra layer of complexity with the collection of data. While several studies and researches have been conducted for data analytics in mobile networks, most of them did not consider analytics based on the four dimensions involved in the mobile networks environment which are the subscriber, the handset, the service and the network element with multiple interface correlation. The main objective of this research was to develop mobile network analytics models applied to the 3G packet-switched domain by analysing data from the radio network with the Iub interface and the core network with the Gn interface to provide a fast root cause analysis (RCA) approach considering the four dimensions involved in the mobile networks. This was achieved by using the latest computer engineering advancements which are Big Data platforms and data mining techniques through machine learning algorithms.Electrical and Mining EngineeringM. Tech. (Electrical Engineering

Traffic Steering in Radio Level Integration of LTE and Wi-Fi Networks

A smartphone generates approximately 1, 614 MB of data per month which is 48 times of the data generated by a typical basic-feature cell phone. Cisco forecasts that the mobile data traffic growth will remain to increase and reach 49 Exabytes per month by 2021. However, the telecommunication service providers/operators face many challenges in order to improve cellular network capacity to match these ever-increasing data demands due to low, almost flat Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and low Return on Investment (RoI). Spectrum resource crunch and licensing requirement for operation in cellular bands further complicate the procedure to support and manage the network. In order to deal with the aforementioned challenges, one of the most vital solutions is to leverage the integration benefits of cellular networks with unlicensed operation of Wi-Fi networks. A closer level of cellular and Wi-Fi coupling/interworking improves Quality of Service (QoS) by unified connection management to user devices (UEs). It also offloads a significant portion of user traffic from cellular Base Station (BS) to Wi-Fi Access Point (AP). In this thesis, we have considered the cellular network to be Long Term Evolution (LTE) popularly known as 4G-LTE for interworking with Wi-Fi. Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) defined various LTE and Wi-Fi interworking architectures from Rel-8 to Rel-11. Because of the limitations in these legacy LTE Wi-Fi interworking solutions, 3GPP proposed Radio Level Integration (RLI) architectures to enhance flow mobility and to react fast to channel dynamics. RLI node encompasses link level connection between Small cell deployments, (ii) Meeting Guaranteed Bit Rate (GBR) requirements of the users including those experiencing poor Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR), and (iii) Dynamic steering of the flows across LTE and Wi-Fi links to maximize the system throughput. The second important problem addressed is the uplink traffic steering. To enable efficient uplink traffic steering in LWIP system, in this thesis, Network Coordination Function (NCF) is proposed. NCF is realized at the LWIP node by implementing various uplink traffic steering algorithms. NCF encompasses four different uplink traffic steering algorithms for efficient utilization of Wi-Fi resources in LWIP system. NCF facilitates the network to take intelligent decisions rather than individual UEs deciding to steer the uplink traffic onto LTE link or Wi-Fi link. The NCF algorithms work by leveraging the availability of LTE as the anchor to improvise the channel utilization of Wi-Fi. The third most important problem is to enable packet level steering in LWIP. When data rates of LTE and Wi-Fi links are incomparable, steering packets across the links create problems for TCP traffic. When the packets are received Out-of-Order (OOO) at the TCP receiver due to variation in delay experienced on each link, it leads to the generation of DUPlicate ACKnowledgements (DUP-ACK). These unnecessary DUP-ACKs adversely affect the TCP congestion window growth and thereby lead to poor TCP performance. This thesis addresses this problem by proposing a virtual congestion control mechanism (VIrtual congeStion control wIth Boost acknowLedgEment -VISIBLE). The proposed mechanism not only improves the throughput of a flow by reducing the number of unnecessary DUPACKs delivered to the TCP sender but also sends Boost ACKs in order to rapidly grow the congestion window to reap in aggregation benefits of heterogeneous links. The fourth problem considered is the placement of LWIP nodes. In this thesis, we have addressed problems pertaining to the dense deployment of LWIP nodes. LWIP deployment can be realized in colocated and non-colocated fashion. The placement of LWIP nodes is done with the following objectives: (i) Minimizing the number of LWIP nodes deployed without any coverage holes, (ii) Maximizing SINR in every sub-region of a building, and (iii) Minimizing the energy spent by UEs and LWIP nodes. Finally, prototypes of RLI architectures are presented (i.e., LWIP and LWA testbeds). The prototypes are developed using open source LTE platform OpenAirInterface (OAI) and commercial-off-the-shelf hardware components. The developed LWIP prototype is made to work with commercial UE (Nexus 5). The LWA prototype requires modification at the UE protocol stack, hence it is realized using OAI-UE. The developed prototypes are coupled with the legacy multipath protocol such as MPTCP to investigate the coupling benefits

LTE-3G Inter-Operability Study

In this thesis the author have studied and measured how LTE Release 8 interworks with previous legacy 3G networks in real environmental conditions. At present, LTE technology is deployed based on service hotspots that cover small geographical areas. It is expected that full scale deployment of LTE network will take a considerable time, which also means the mobile users have to primarily depend on legacy 3G and 2G networks for years to come. Therefore, it is important to study the interworking mechanisms between LTE and legacy networks in order to provide seamless mobility and uninterrupted user services in primarily available LTE hotspots. In order to perform this study, field measurements have been carried out in DNA commercial network in outdoor and indoor environments. Initially, cell selection and reselection criteria for inter-RAT mobility in idle condition is mathematically checked and verified. Then, channel conditions are studied and analyzed based on radio parameters like RSRP, RSCP, RSRQ, Ec/No, SNR and CQI when inter-RAT handover is performed. After that, an inter-RAT handover test from LTE towards 3G is studied with the help of signalling message. Next, the impact of inter-RAT handover on KPIs like MAC DL throughput, handover success rate, RTT, handover latency and user plane delay are studied and analyzed. Finally, performance of inter-RAT handover in outdoor and indoor measurement environment is compared based on KPI measurements. From this study, it is found that inter-RAT mobility from LTE towards 3G network is working in both idle and connected modes with 100 percent handover success rate, however, the user experienced network latency around 4 seconds in average. The user experienced degradation in throughput because of decreasing link quality. The user data service interruption is roughly for 3-4 seconds and the RTT value for 32 bytes of data is observed to be around 300 ms in average during handover. It is also found that the impact of inter-RAT handover in indoor environment is higher than outdoor environment based on KPIs results

A Survey on Data Plane Programming with P4: Fundamentals, Advances, and Applied Research

With traditional networking, users can configure control plane protocols to match the specific network configuration, but without the ability to fundamentally change the underlying algorithms. With SDN, the users may provide their own control plane, that can control network devices through their data plane APIs. Programmable data planes allow users to define their own data plane algorithms for network devices including appropriate data plane APIs which may be leveraged by user-defined SDN control. Thus, programmable data planes and SDN offer great flexibility for network customization, be it for specialized, commercial appliances, e.g., in 5G or data center networks, or for rapid prototyping in industrial and academic research. Programming protocol-independent packet processors (P4) has emerged as the currently most widespread abstraction, programming language, and concept for data plane programming. It is developed and standardized by an open community and it is supported by various software and hardware platforms. In this paper, we survey the literature from 2015 to 2020 on data plane programming with P4. Our survey covers 497 references of which 367 are scientific publications. We organize our work into two parts. In the first part, we give an overview of data plane programming models, the programming language, architectures, compilers, targets, and data plane APIs. We also consider research efforts to advance P4 technology. In the second part, we analyze a large body of literature considering P4-based applied research. We categorize 241 research papers into different application domains, summarize their contributions, and extract prototypes, target platforms, and source code availability.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (COMS) on 2021-01-2

Collaborative Traffic Offloading for Mobile Systems

Due to the popularity of smartphones and mobile streaming services, the growth of traffic volume in mobile networks is phenomenal. This leads to huge investment pressure on mobile operators' wireless access and core infrastructure, while the profits do not necessarily grow at the same pace. As a result, it is urgent to find a cost-effective solution that can scale to the ever increasing traffic volume generated by mobile systems. Among many visions, mobile traffic offloading is regarded as a promising mechanism by using complementary wireless communication technologies, such as WiFi, to offload data traffic away from the overloaded mobile networks. The current trend to equip mobile devices with an additional WiFi interface also supports this vision. This dissertation presents a novel collaborative architecture for mobile traffic offloading that can efficiently utilize the context and resources from networks and end systems. The main contributions include a network-assisted offloading framework, a collaborative system design for energy-aware offloading, and a software-defined networking (SDN) based offloading platform. Our work is the first in this domain to integrate energy and context awareness into mobile traffic offloading from an architectural perspective. We have conducted extensive measurements on mobile systems to identify hidden issues of traffic offloading in the operational networks. We implement the offloading protocol in the Linux kernel and develop our energy-aware offloading framework in C++ and Java on commodity machines and smartphones. Our prototype systems for mobile traffic offloading have been tested in a live environment. The experimental results suggest that our collaborative architecture is feasible and provides reasonable improvement in terms of energy saving and offloading efficiency. We further adopt the programmable paradigm of SDN to enhance the extensibility and deployability of our proposals. We release the SDN-based platform under open-source licenses to encourage future collaboration with research community and standards developing organizations. As one of the pioneering work, our research stresses the importance of collaboration in mobile traffic offloading. The lessons learned from our protocol design, system development, and network experiments shed light on future research and development in this domain.Yksi mobiiliverkkojen suurimmista haasteista liittyy liikennemäärien eksponentiaaliseen kasvuun. Tämä verkkoliikenteen kasvu johtuu pitkälti suosituista videopalveluista, kuten YouTube ja Netflix, jotka lähettävät liikkuvaa kuvaa verkon yli. Verkon lisääntynyt kuormitus vaatii investointeja verkon laajentamiseksi. On tärkeää löytää kustannustehokkaita tapoja välittää suuressa mittakaavassa sisältöä ilman mittavia infrastruktuuri-investointeja. Erilaisia liikennekuormien ohjausmenetelmiä on ehdotettu ratkaisuksi sisällönvälityksen tehostamiseen mobiiliverkoissa. Näissä ratkaisuissa hyödynnetään toisiaan tukevia langattomia teknologioita tiedonvälityksen tehostamiseen, esimerkiksi LTE-verkosta voidaan delegoida tiedonvälitystä WiFi-verkoille. Useimmissa kannettavissa laitteissa on tuki useammalle langattomalle tekniikalle, joten on luonnollista hyödyntää näiden tarjoamia mahdollisuuksia tiedonvälityksen tehostamisessa. Tässä väitöskirjassa tutkitaan liikennekuormien ohjauksen toimintaa ja mahdollisuuksia mobiiliverkoissa. Työssä esitetään uusi yhteistyöpohjainen liikennekuormien ohjausjärjestelmä, joka hyödyntää päätelaitteiden ja verkon tilannetietoa liikennekuormien optimoinnissa. Esitetty järjestelmä ja arkkitehtuuri on ensimmäinen, joka yhdistää energiankulutuksen ja kontekstitiedon liikennekuormien ohjaukseen. Väitöskirjan keskeisiä tuloksia ovat verkon tukema liikennekuormien ohjauskehikko, yhteistyöpohjainen energiatietoinen optimointiratkaisu sekä avoimen lähdekoodin SoftOffload-ratkaisu, joka mahdollistaa ohjelmistopohjaisen liikennekuormien ohjauksen. Esitettyjä järjestelmiä arvioidaan kokeellisesti kaupunkiympäristöissä älypuhelimia käyttäen. Työn tulokset mahdollistavat entistä energiatehokkaammat liikennekuormien ohjausratkaisut ja tarjoavat ideoita ja lähtökohtia tulevaan 5G kehitystyöhön

Flexible cross layer optimization for fixed and mobile broadband telecommunication networks and beyond

In der heutigen Zeit, in der das Internet im Allgemeinen und Telekommunikationsnetze im Speziellen kritische Infrastrukturen erreicht haben, entstehen hohe Anforderungen und neue Herausforderungen an den Datentransport in Hinsicht auf Effizienz und Flexibilität. Heutige Telekommunikationsnetze sind jedoch rigide und statisch konzipiert, was nur ein geringes Maß an Flexibilität und Anpassungsfähigkeit der Netze ermöglicht und darüber hinaus nur im begrenzten Maße die Wichtigkeit von Datenflüssen im wiederspiegelt. Diverse Lösungsansätze zum kompletten Neuentwurf als auch zum evolutionären Konzept des Internet wurden ausgearbeitet und spezifiziert, um diese neuartigen Anforderungen und Herausforderungen adäquat zu adressieren. Einer dieser Ansätze ist das Cross Layer Optimierungs-Paradigma, welches eine bisher nicht mögliche direkte Kommunikation zwischen verteilten Funktionalitäten unterschiedlichen Typs ermöglicht, um ein höheres Maß an Dienstgüte zu erlangen. Ein wesentlicher Indikator, welcher die Relevanz dieses Ansatzes unterstreicht, zeichnet sich durch die Programmierbarkeit von Netzwerkfunktionalitäten aus, welche sich aus der Evolution von heutigen hin zu zukünftigen Netzen erkennen lässt. Dieses Konzept wird als ein vielversprechender Lösungsansatz für Kontrollmechanismen von Diensten in zukünftigen Kernnetzwerken erachtet. Dennoch existiert zur Zeit der Entstehung dieser Doktorarbeit kein Ansatz zur Cross Layer Optimierung in Festnetz-und Mobilfunknetze, welcher der geforderten Effizienz und Flexibilität gerecht wird. Die übergeordnete Zielsetzung dieser Arbeit adressiert die Konzeptionierung, Entwicklung und Evaluierung eines Cross Layer Optimierungsansatzes für Telekommunikationsnetze. Einen wesentlichen Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit stellt die Definition einer theoretischen Konzeptionierung und deren praktischer Realisierung eines Systems zur Cross Layer Optimierung für Telekommunikationsnetze dar. Die durch diese Doktorarbeit analysierten wissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen betreffen u.a. die Anwendbarkeit von Cross Layer Optimierungsansätzen auf Telekommunikationsnetzwerke; die Betrachtung neuartiger Anforderungen; existierende Konzepte, Ansätze und Lösungen; die Abdeckung neuer Funktionalitäten durch bereits existierende Lösungen; und letztendlich den erkennbaren Mehrwert des neu vorgeschlagenen Konzepts gegenüber den bestehenden Lösungen. Die wissenschaftlichen Beiträge dieser Doktorarbeit lassen sich grob durch vier Säulen skizzieren: Erstens werden der Stand der Wissenschaft und Technik analysiert und bewertet, Anforderungen erhoben und eine Lückenanalyse vorgenommen. Zweitens werden Herausforderungen, Möglichkeiten, Limitierungen und Konzeptionierungsaspekte eines Modells zur Cross Layer Optimierung analysiert und evaluiert. Drittens wird ein konzeptionelles Modell - Generic Adaptive Resource Control (GARC) - spezifiziert, als Prototyp realisiert und ausgiebig validiert. Viertens werden theoretische und praktische Beiträge dieser Doktorarbeit vertiefend analysiert und bewertet.As the telecommunication world moves towards a data-only network environment, signaling, voice and other data are similarly transported as Internet Protocol packets. New requirements, challenges and opportunities are bound to this transition and influence telecommunication architectures accordingly. In this time in which the Internet in general, and telecommunication networks in particular, have entered critical infrastructures and systems, it is of high importance to guarantee efficient and flexible data transport. A certain level of Quality-of-Service (QoS) for critical services is crucial even during overload situations in the access and core network, as these two are the bottlenecks in the network. However, the current telecommunication architecture is rigid and static, which offers very limited flexibility and adaptability. Several concepts on clean slate as well as evolutionary approaches have been proposed and defined in order to cope with these new challenges and requirements. One of these approaches is the Cross Layer Optimization paradigm. This concept omits the strict separation and isolation of the Application-, Control- and Network-Layers as it enables interaction and fosters Cross Layer Optimization among them. One indicator underlying this trend is the programmability of network functions, which emerges clearly during the telecommunication network evolution towards the Future Internet. The concept is regarded as one solution for service control in future mobile core networks. However, no standardized approach for Cross Layer signaling nor optimizations in between the individual layers have been standardized at the time this thesis was written. The main objective of this thesis is the design, implementation and evaluation of a Cross Layer Optimization concept on telecommunication networks. A major emphasis is given to the definition of a theoretical model and its practical realization through the implementation of a Cross Layer network resource optimization system for telecommunication systems. The key questions answered through this thesis are: in which way can the Cross Layer Optimization paradigm be applied on telecommunication networks; which new requirements arise; which of the required functionalities cannot be covered through existing solutions, what other conceptual approaches already exist and finally whether such a new concept is viable. The work presented in this thesis and its contributions can be summarized in four parts: First, a review of related work, a requirement analysis and a gap analysis were performed. Second, challenges, limitations, opportunities and design aspects for specifying an optimization model between application and network layer were formulated. Third, a conceptual model - Generic Adaptive Resource Control (GARC) - was specified and its prototypical implementation was realized. Fourth, the theoretical and practical thesis contributions was validated and evaluated