975 research outputs found
Green Cellular Networks: A Survey, Some Research Issues and Challenges
Energy efficiency in cellular networks is a growing concern for cellular
operators to not only maintain profitability, but also to reduce the overall
environment effects. This emerging trend of achieving energy efficiency in
cellular networks is motivating the standardization authorities and network
operators to continuously explore future technologies in order to bring
improvements in the entire network infrastructure. In this article, we present
a brief survey of methods to improve the power efficiency of cellular networks,
explore some research issues and challenges and suggest some techniques to
enable an energy efficient or "green" cellular network. Since base stations
consume a maximum portion of the total energy used in a cellular system, we
will first provide a comprehensive survey on techniques to obtain energy
savings in base stations. Next, we discuss how heterogeneous network deployment
based on micro, pico and femto-cells can be used to achieve this goal. Since
cognitive radio and cooperative relaying are undisputed future technologies in
this regard, we propose a research vision to make these technologies more
energy efficient. Lastly, we explore some broader perspectives in realizing a
"green" cellular network technologyComment: 16 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
Extending Wireless Powered Communication Networks for Future Internet of Things
Energy limitation has always been a major concern for long-term operation of wireless networks. With today's exponential growth of wireless technologies and the rapid movement towards the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), the need for a reliable energy supply is more tangible than ever. Recently, energy harvesting has gained considerable attention in research communities as a sustainable solution for prolonging the lifetime of wireless networks. Beside conventional energy harvesting sources such as solar, wind, vibration, etc. harvesting energy from radio frequency (RF) signals has drawn significant research interest in recent years as a promising way to overcome the energy bottleneck. Lately, the integration of RF energy transfer with wireless communication networks has led to the emergence of an interesting research area, namely, wireless powered communication network (WPCN), where network users are powered by a hybrid access point (HAP) which transfers wireless energy to the users in addition to serving the functionalities of a conventional access point. The primary aim of this thesis is to extend the baseline model of WPCN to a dual-hop WPCN (DH-WPCN) in which a number of energy-limited relays are in charge of assisting the information exchange between energy-stable users and the HAP. Unlike most of the existing research in this area which has merely focused on designing methods and protocols for uplink communication, we study both uplink and downlink information transmission in the DH-WPCN. We investigate sum-throughput maximization problems in both directions and propose algorithms for optimizing the values of the related parameters. We also tackle the doubly near-far problem which occurs due to unequal distance of the relays from the HAP by proposing a fairness enhancement algorithm which guarantees throughput fairness among all users
Data and Energy Integrated Communication Networks for Wireless Big Data
This paper describes a new type of communication network called data and energy integrated communication networks (DEINs), which integrates the traditionally separate two processes, i.e., wireless information transfer (WIT) and wireless energy transfer (WET), fulfilling co-transmission of data and energy. In particular, the energy transmission using radio frequency is for the purpose of energy harvesting (EH) rather than information decoding. One driving force of the advent of DEINs is wireless big data, which comes from wireless sensors that produce a large amount of small piece of data. These sensors are typically powered by battery that drains sooner or later and will have to be taken out and then replaced or recharged. EH has emerged as a technology to wirelessly charge batteries in a contactless way. Recent research work has attempted to combine WET with WIT, typically under the label of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer. Such work in the literature largely focuses on the communication side of the whole wireless networks with particular emphasis on power allocation. The DEIN communication network proposed in this paper regards the convergence of WIT and WET as a full system that considers not only the physical layer but also the higher layers, such as media access control and information routing. After describing the DEIN concept and its high-level architecture/protocol stack, this paper presents two use cases focusing on the lower layer and the higher layer of a DEIN network, respectively. The lower layer use case is about a fair resource allocation algorithm, whereas the high-layer section introduces an efficient data forwarding scheme in combination with EH. The two case studies aim to give a better explanation of the DEIN concept. Some future research directions and challenges are also pointed out
Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Communication Networks for the Maritime Internet of Things: Key Technologies, Opportunities, and Challenges
With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing
number of maritime mobile terminals, as well as a growing demand for high-speed
and ultra-reliable maritime communications to keep them connected.
Traditionally, the maritime Internet of Things (IoT) is enabled by maritime
satellites. However, satellites are seriously restricted by their high latency
and relatively low data rate. As an alternative, shore & island-based base
stations (BSs) can be built to extend the coverage of terrestrial networks
using fourth-generation (4G), fifth-generation (5G), and beyond 5G services.
Unmanned aerial vehicles can also be exploited to serve as aerial maritime BSs.
Despite of all these approaches, there are still open issues for an efficient
maritime communication network (MCN). For example, due to the complicated
electromagnetic propagation environment, the limited geometrically available BS
sites, and rigorous service demands from mission-critical applications,
conventional communication and networking theories and methods should be
tailored for maritime scenarios. Towards this end, we provide a survey on the
demand for maritime communications, the state-of-the-art MCNs, and key
technologies for enhancing transmission efficiency, extending network coverage,
and provisioning maritime-specific services. Future challenges in developing an
environment-aware, service-driven, and integrated satellite-air-ground MCN to
be smart enough to utilize external auxiliary information, e.g., sea state and
atmosphere conditions, are also discussed
Energy Harvesting Wireless Communications: A Review of Recent Advances
This article summarizes recent contributions in the broad area of energy
harvesting wireless communications. In particular, we provide the current state
of the art for wireless networks composed of energy harvesting nodes, starting
from the information-theoretic performance limits to transmission scheduling
policies and resource allocation, medium access and networking issues. The
emerging related area of energy transfer for self-sustaining energy harvesting
wireless networks is considered in detail covering both energy cooperation
aspects and simultaneous energy and information transfer. Various potential
models with energy harvesting nodes at different network scales are reviewed as
well as models for energy consumption at the nodes.Comment: To appear in the IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications
(Special Issue: Wireless Communications Powered by Energy Harvesting and
Wireless Energy Transfer
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