3,754 research outputs found
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
PV-Powered CoMP-Based Green Cellular Networks with a Standby Grid Supply
This paper proposes a novel framework for PV-powered cellular networks with a
standby grid supply and an essential energy management technique for achieving
envisaged green networks. The proposal considers an emerging cellular network
architecture employing two types of coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission
techniques for serving the subscribers. Under the proposed framework, each base
station (BS) is powered by an individual PV solar energy module having an
independent storage device. BSs are also connected to the conventional grid
supply for meeting additional energy demand. We also propose a dynamic inter-BS
solar energy sharing policy through a transmission line for further greening
the proposed network by minimizing the consumption from the grid supply. An
extensive simulation-based study in the downlink of a Long-Term Evolution (LTE)
cellular system is carried out for evaluating the energy efficiency performance
of the proposed framework. System performance is also investigated for
identifying the impact of various system parameters including storage factor,
storage capacity, solar generation capacity, transmission line loss, and
different CoMP techniques.Comment: 14 pages, International Journal of Photoenergy, 6189468, 201
Eficiência energética avançada para sistema OFDMA CoMP coordenação multiponto
Doutoramento em Engenharia EletrotécnicaThe ever-growing energy consumption in mobile networks stimulated by
the expected growth in data tra ffic has provided the impetus for mobile
operators to refocus network design, planning and deployment towards reducing
the cost per bit, whilst at the same time providing a signifi cant step
towards reducing their operational expenditure. As a step towards incorporating
cost-eff ective mobile system, 3GPP LTE-Advanced has adopted the
coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmission technique due to its ability
to mitigate and manage inter-cell interference (ICI). Using CoMP the cell
average and cell edge throughput are boosted. However, there is room for
reducing energy consumption further by exploiting the inherent
exibility of
dynamic resource allocation protocols. To this end packet scheduler plays
the central role in determining the overall performance of the 3GPP longterm
evolution (LTE) based on packet-switching operation and provide a
potential research playground for optimizing energy consumption in future
networks. In this thesis we investigate the baseline performance for down
link CoMP using traditional scheduling approaches, and subsequently go
beyond and propose novel energy e fficient scheduling (EES) strategies that
can achieve power-e fficient transmission to the UEs whilst enabling both
system energy effi ciency gain and fairness improvement. However, ICI can
still be prominent when multiple nodes use common resources with di fferent
power levels inside the cell, as in the so called heterogeneous networks (Het-
Net) environment. HetNets are comprised of two or more tiers of cells. The
rst, or higher tier, is a traditional deployment of cell sites, often referred
to in this context as macrocells. The lower tiers are termed small cells, and
can appear as microcell, picocells or femtocells. The HetNet has attracted
signiffi cant interest by key manufacturers as one of the enablers for high
speed data at low cost. Research until now has revealed several key hurdles
that must be overcome before HetNets can achieve their full potential:
bottlenecks in the backhaul must be alleviated, as well as their seamless
interworking with CoMP. In this thesis we explore exactly the latter hurdle,
and present innovative ideas on advancing CoMP to work in synergy with
HetNet deployment, complemented by a novel resource allocation policy
for HetNet tighter interference management. As system level simulator has
been used to analyze the proposed algorithm/protocols, and results have
concluded that up to 20% energy gain can be observed.O aumento do consumo de energia nas TICs e em particular nas redes de
comunicação móveis, estimulado por um crescimento esperado do tráfego de
dados, tem servido de impulso aos operadores m oveis para reorientarem os
seus projectos de rede, planeamento e implementa ção no sentido de reduzir
o custo por bit, o que ao mesmo tempo possibilita um passo signicativo no
sentido de reduzir as despesas operacionais. Como um passo no sentido de
uma incorporação eficaz em termos destes custos, o sistema móvel 3GPP
LTE-Advanced adoptou a técnica de transmissão Coordenação Multi-Ponto
(identificada na literatura com a sigla CoMP) devido à sua capacidade de
mitigar e gerir Interferência entre Células (sigla ICI na literatura). No entanto
a ICI pode ainda ser mais proeminente quando v arios n os no interior
da célula utilizam recursos comuns com diferentes níveis de energia,
como acontece nos chamados ambientes de redes heterogéneas (sigla Het-
Net na literatura). As HetNets são constituídas por duas ou mais camadas
de células. A primeira, ou camada superiora, constitui uma implantação
tradicional de sítios de célula, muitas vezes referidas neste contexto como
macrocells. Os níveis mais baixos são designados por células pequenas, e
podem aparecer como microcells, picocells ou femtocells. A HetNet tem
atra do grande interesse por parte dos principais fabricantes como sendo
facilitador para transmissões de dados de alta velocidade a baixo custo. A
investigação tem revelado at e a data, vários dos principais obstáculos que
devem ser superados para que as HetNets possam atingir todo o seu potencial:
(i) os estrangulamentos no backhaul devem ser aliviados; (ii) bem
como sua perfeita interoperabilidade com CoMP. Nesta tese exploramos
este ultimo constrangimento e apresentamos ideias inovadoras em como a
t ecnica CoMP poder a ser aperfeiçoada por forma a trabalhar em sinergia
com a implementação da HetNet, complementado ainda com uma nova
perspectiva na alocação de recursos rádio para um controlo e gestão mais
apertado de interferência nas HetNets. Com recurso a simulação a níível de
sistema para analisar o desempenho dos algoritmos e protocolos propostos,
os resultados obtidos concluíram que ganhos at e a ordem dos 20% poderão
ser atingidos em termos de eficiência energética
Self-organised multi-objective network clustering for coordinated communications in future wireless networks
The fifth generation (5G) cellular system is being developed with a vision of 1000 times more capacity than the fourth generation (4G) systems to cope with ever increasing mobile data traffic. Interference mitigation plays an important role in improving the much needed overall capacity especially in highly interference-limited dense deployment scenarios envisioned for 5G. Coordinated multi-point (CoMP) is identified as a promising interference mitigation technique where multiple base stations (BS) can cooperate for joint transmission/reception by exchanging user/control data and perform joint signal processing to mitigate inter-cell interference and even exploit it as a useful signal. CoMP is already a key feature of long term evolution-advanced (LTE-A) and envisioned as an essential function for 5G. However, CoMP cannot be realized for the whole network due to its computational complexity, synchronization requirement between coordinating BSs and high backhaul capacity requirement. BSs need to be clustered into smaller groups and CoMP can be activated within these smaller clusters.
This PhD thesis aims to investigate optimum dynamic CoMP clustering solutions in 5G and beyond wireless networks with massive small cell (SC) deployment. Truly self-organised CoMP clustering algorithms are investigated, aiming to improve much needed spectral efficiency and other network objectives especially load balancing in future wireless networks. Low complexity, scalable, stable and efficient CoMP clustering algorithms are designed to jointly optimize spectral efficiency, load balancing and limited backhaul availability.
Firstly, we provide a self organizing, load aware, user-centric CoMP clustering algorithm in a control and data plane separation architecture (CDSA) proposed for 5G to maximize spectral efficiency and improve load balancing. We introduce a novel re-clustering algorithm for user equipment (UE) served by highly loaded cells and show that unsatisfied UEs due to high load can be significantly reduced with minimal impact on spectral efficiency. Clustering with load balancing algorithm exploits the capacity gain from increase in cluster size and also the traffic shift from highly loaded cells to lightly loaded neighbours.
Secondly, we develop a novel, low complexity, stable, network-centric clustering model to jointly optimize load balancing and spectral efficiency objectives and tackle the complexity and scalability issues of user-centric clustering. We show that our clustering model provide high spectral efficiency in low-load scenario and better load distribution in high-load scenario resulting in lower number of unsatisfied users while keeping spectral efficiency at comparably high levels. Unsatisfied UEs due to high load are reduced by with our algorithm when compared to greedy clustering model. In this context, the unique contribution of this work that it is the first attempt to fill the gap in literature for multi-objective, network-centric CoMP clustering, jointly optimizing load balancing and spectral efficiency.
Thirdly, we design a novel multi-objective CoMP clustering algorithm to include backhaul-load awareness and tackle one of the biggest challenges for the realization of CoMP in future networks i.e. the demand for high backhaul bandwidth and very low latency. We fill the gap in literature as the first attempt to design a clustering algorithm to jointly optimize backhaul/radio access load and spectral efficiency and analyze the trade-off between them. We employ 2 novel coalitional game theoretic clustering methods, 1-a novel merge/split/transfer coalitional game theoretic clustering algorithm to form backhaul and load aware BS clusters where spectral efficiency is still kept at high level, 2-a novel user transfer game model to move users between clusters to improve load balancing further. Stability and complexity analysis is provided and simulation results are presented to show the performance of the proposed method under different backhaul availability scenarios. We show that average system throughout is increased by 49.9% with our backhaul-load aware model in high load scenario when compared to a greedy model.
Finally, we provide an operator's perspective on deployment of CoMP. Firstly, we present the main motivation and benefits of CoMP from an operator's viewpoint. Next, we present operational requirements for CoMP implementation and discuss practical considerations and challenges of such deployment. Possible solutions for these experienced challenges are reviewed. We then present initial results from a UL CoMP trial and discuss changes in key network performance indicators (KPI) during the trial. Additionally, we propose further improvements to the trialed CoMP scheme for better potential gains and give our perspective on how CoMP will fit into the future wireless networks
Two-photon imaging and analysis of neural network dynamics
The glow of a starry night sky, the smell of a freshly brewed cup of coffee
or the sound of ocean waves breaking on the beach are representations of the
physical world that have been created by the dynamic interactions of thousands
of neurons in our brains. How the brain mediates perceptions, creates thoughts,
stores memories and initiates actions remains one of the most profound puzzles
in biology, if not all of science. A key to a mechanistic understanding of how
the nervous system works is the ability to analyze the dynamics of neuronal
networks in the living organism in the context of sensory stimulation and
behaviour. Dynamic brain properties have been fairly well characterized on the
microscopic level of individual neurons and on the macroscopic level of whole
brain areas largely with the help of various electrophysiological techniques.
However, our understanding of the mesoscopic level comprising local populations
of hundreds to thousands of neurons (so called 'microcircuits') remains
comparably poor. In large parts, this has been due to the technical
difficulties involved in recording from large networks of neurons with
single-cell spatial resolution and near- millisecond temporal resolution in the
brain of living animals. In recent years, two-photon microscopy has emerged as
a technique which meets many of these requirements and thus has become the
method of choice for the interrogation of local neural circuits. Here, we
review the state-of-research in the field of two-photon imaging of neuronal
populations, covering the topics of microscope technology, suitable fluorescent
indicator dyes, staining techniques, and in particular analysis techniques for
extracting relevant information from the fluorescence data. We expect that
functional analysis of neural networks using two-photon imaging will help to
decipher fundamental operational principles of neural microcircuits.Comment: 36 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Reports on Progress
in Physic
Traffic-Driven Energy Efficient Operational Mechanisms in Cellular Access Networks
Recent explosive growth in mobile data traffic is increasing energy consumption in cellular networks at an incredible rate. Moreover, as a direct result of the conventional static network provisioning approach, a significant amount of electrical energy is being wasted in the existing networks. Therefore, in recent time, the issue of designing energy efficient cellular networks has drawn significant attention, which is also the foremost motivation behind this research. The proposed research is particularly focused on the design of self-organizing type traffic-sensitive dynamic network reconfiguring mechanisms for energy efficiency in cellular systems. Under the proposed techniques, radio access networks (RANs) are adaptively reconfigured using less equipment leading to reduced energy utilization. Several energy efficient cellular network frameworks by employing inter-base station (BS) cooperation in RANs are proposed. Under these frameworks, based on the instantaneous traffic demand, BSs are dynamically switched between active and sleep modes by redistributing traffic among them and thus, energy savings is achieved. The focus is then extended to exploiting the availability of multiple cellular networks for extracting energy savings through inter-RAN cooperation. Mathematical models for both of these single-RAN and multi-RAN cooperation mechanisms are also formulated. An alternative energy saving technique using dynamic sectorization (DS) under which some of the sectors in the underutilized BSs are turned into sleep mode is also proposed. Algorithms for both the distributed and the centralized implementations are developed. Finally, a two-dimensional energy efficient network provisioning mechanism is proposed by jointly applying both the DS and the dynamic BS switching. Extensive simulations are carried out, which demonstrate the capability of the proposed mechanisms in substantially enhancing the energy efficiency of cellular networks
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