Cognitive Orthogonal Precoder for Two-tiered Networks Deployment

In this work, the problem of cross-tier interference in a two-tiered (macro-cell and cognitive small-cells) network, under the complete spectrum sharing paradigm, is studied. A new orthogonal precoder transmit scheme for the small base stations, called multi-user Vandermonde-subspace frequency division multiplexing (MU-VFDM), is proposed. MU-VFDM allows several cognitive small base stations to coexist with legacy macro-cell receivers, by nulling the small- to macro-cell cross-tier interference, without any cooperation between the two tiers. This cleverly designed cascaded precoder structure, not only cancels the cross-tier interference, but avoids the co-tier interference for the small-cell network. The achievable sum-rate of the small-cell network, satisfying the interference cancelation requirements, is evaluated for perfect and imperfect channel state information at the transmitter. Simulation results for the cascaded MU-VFDM precoder show a comparable performance to that of state-of-the-art dirty paper coding technique, for the case of a dense cellular layout. Finally, a comparison between MU-VFDM and a standard complete spectrum separation strategy is proposed. Promising gains in terms of achievable sum-rate are shown for the two-tiered network w.r.t. the traditional bandwidth management approach.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted and to appear in IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications: Cognitive Radio Series, 2013. Copyright transferred to IEE

Multiple Access in Aerial Networks: From Orthogonal and Non-Orthogonal to Rate-Splitting

Recently, interest on the utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has aroused. Specifically, UAVs can be used in cellular networks as aerial users for delivery, surveillance, rescue search, or as an aerial base station (aBS) for communication with ground users in remote uncovered areas or in dense environments requiring prompt high capacity. Aiming to satisfy the high requirements of wireless aerial networks, several multiple access techniques have been investigated. In particular, space-division multiple access(SDMA) and power-domain non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) present promising multiplexing gains for aerial downlink and uplink. Nevertheless, these gains are limited as they depend on the conditions of the environment. Hence, a generalized scheme has been recently proposed, called rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA), which is capable of achieving better spectral efficiency gains compared to SDMA and NOMA. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of key multiple access technologies adopted for aerial networks, where aBSs are deployed to serve ground users. Since there have been only sporadic results reported on the use of RSMA in aerial systems, we aim to extend the discussion on this topic by modelling and analyzing the weighted sum-rate performance of a two-user downlink network served by an RSMA-based aBS. Finally, related open issues and future research directions are exposed.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, submitted to IEEE Journa

Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access, interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered. Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with observations on potential research directions in this area.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 303 refs. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1303.1609 by other authors. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 201

Vandermonde-subspace Frequency Division Multiplexing for Two-Tiered Cognitive Radio Networks

Vandermonde-subspace frequency division multiplexing (VFDM) is an overlay spectrum sharing technique for cognitive radio. VFDM makes use of a precoder based on a Vandermonde structure to transmit information over a secondary system, while keeping an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based primary system interference-free. To do so, VFDM exploits frequency selectivity and the use of cyclic prefixes by the primary system. Herein, a global view of VFDM is presented, including also practical aspects such as linear receivers and the impact of channel estimation. We show that VFDM provides a spectral efficiency increase of up to 1 bps/Hz over cognitive radio systems based on unused band detection. We also present some key design parameters for its future implementation and a feasible channel estimation protocol. Finally we show that, even when some of the theoretical assumptions are relaxed, VFDM provides non-negligible rates while protecting the primary system.Comment: 9 pages, accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Communication

A Distributed Approach to Interference Alignment in OFDM-based Two-tiered Networks

In this contribution, we consider a two-tiered network and focus on the coexistence between the two tiers at physical layer. We target our efforts on a long term evolution advanced (LTE-A) orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) macro-cell sharing the spectrum with a randomly deployed second tier of small-cells. In such networks, high levels of co-channel interference between the macro and small base stations (MBS/SBS) may largely limit the potential spectral efficiency gains provided by the frequency reuse 1. To address this issue, we propose a novel cognitive interference alignment based scheme to protect the macro-cell from the cross-tier interference, while mitigating the co-tier interference in the second tier. Remarkably, only local channel state information (CSI) and autonomous operations are required in the second tier, resulting in a completely self-organizing approach for the SBSs. The optimal precoder that maximizes the spectral efficiency of the link between each SBS and its served user equipment is found by means of a distributed one-shot strategy. Numerical findings reveal non-negligible spectral efficiency enhancements with respect to traditional time division multiple access approaches at any signal to noise (SNR) regime. Additionally, the proposed technique exhibits significant robustness to channel estimation errors, achieving remarkable results for the imperfect CSI case and yielding consistent performance enhancements to the network.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted and to appear in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology Special Section: Self-Organizing Radio Networks, 2013. Authors' final version. Copyright transferred to IEE

Content delivery over multi-antenna wireless networks

The past few decades have witnessed unprecedented advances in information technology, which have significantly shaped the way we acquire and process information in our daily lives. Wireless communications has become the main means of access to data through mobile devices, resulting in a continuous exponential growth in wireless data traffic, mainly driven by the demand for high quality content. Various technologies have been proposed by researchers to tackle this growth in 5G and beyond, including the use of increasing number of antenna elements, integrated point-to-multipoint delivery and caching, which constitute the core of this thesis. In particular, we study non-orthogonal content delivery in multiuser multiple-input-single-output (MISO) systems. First, a joint beamforming strategy for simultaneous delivery of broadcast and unicast services is investigated, based on layered division multiplexing (LDM) as a means of superposition coding. The system performance in terms of minimum required power under prescribed quality-of-service (QoS) requirements is examined in comparison with time division multiplexing (TDM). It is demonstrated through simulations that the non-orthogonal delivery strategy based on LDM significantly outperforms the orthogonal strategy based on TDM in terms of system throughput and reliability. To facilitate efficient implementation of the LDM-based beamforming design, we further propose a dual decomposition-based distributed approach. Next, we study an efficient multicast beamforming design in cache-aided multiuser MISO systems, exploiting proactive content placement and coded delivery. It is observed that the complexity of this problem grows exponentially with the number of subfiles delivered to each user in each time slot, which itself grows exponentially with the number of users in the system. Therefore, we propose a low-complexity alternative through time-sharing that limits the number of subfiles that can be received by a user in each time slot. Moreover, a joint design of content delivery and multicast beamforming is proposed to further enhance the system performance, under the constraint on maximum number of subfiles each user can decode in each time slot. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Chapter 5, followed by an outlook for future works.Open Acces