Scalability of broadcast performance in wireless network-on-chip

Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) are currently the paradigm of choice to interconnect the cores of a chip multiprocessor. However, conventional NoCs may not suffice to fulfill the on-chip communication requirements of processors with hundreds or thousands of cores. The main reason is that the performance of such networks drops as the number of cores grows, especially in the presence of multicast and broadcast traffic. This not only limits the scalability of current multiprocessor architectures, but also sets a performance wall that prevents the development of architectures that generate moderate-to-high levels of multicast. In this paper, a Wireless Network-on-Chip (WNoC) where all cores share a single broadband channel is presented. Such design is conceived to provide low latency and ordered delivery for multicast/broadcast traffic, in an attempt to complement a wireline NoC that will transport the rest of communication flows. To assess the feasibility of this approach, the network performance of WNoC is analyzed as a function of the system size and the channel capacity, and then compared to that of wireline NoCs with embedded multicast support. Based on this evaluation, preliminary results on the potential performance of the proposed hybrid scheme are provided, together with guidelines for the design of MAC protocols for WNoC.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Delivering Live Multimedia Streams to Mobile Hosts in a Wireless Internet with Multiple Content Aggregators

We consider the distribution of channels of live multimedia content (e.g., radio or TV broadcasts) via multiple content aggregators. In our work, an aggregator receives channels from content sources and redistributes them to a potentially large number of mobile hosts. Each aggregator can offer a channel in various configurations to cater for different wireless links, mobile hosts, and user preferences. As a result, a mobile host can generally choose from different configurations of the same channel offered by multiple alternative aggregators, which may be available through different interfaces (e.g., in a hotspot). A mobile host may need to handoff to another aggregator once it receives a channel. To prevent service disruption, a mobile host may for instance need to handoff to another aggregator when it leaves the subnets that make up its current aggregator�s service area (e.g., a hotspot or a cellular network).\ud In this paper, we present the design of a system that enables (multi-homed) mobile hosts to seamlessly handoff from one aggregator to another so that they can continue to receive a channel wherever they go. We concentrate on handoffs between aggregators as a result of a mobile host crossing a subnet boundary. As part of the system, we discuss a lightweight application-level protocol that enables mobile hosts to select the aggregator that provides the �best� configuration of a channel. The protocol comes into play when a mobile host begins to receive a channel and when it crosses a subnet boundary while receiving the channel. We show how our protocol can be implemented using the standard IETF session control and description protocols SIP and SDP. The implementation combines SIP and SDP�s offer-answer model in a novel way

Protocols for packet switched communication and reliable multicasting in fully-dynamic multi-hop wireless networks

Designing protocols for a fully dynamic wireless packet switched networks pose unique challenges due to the constantly changing topology of the network. A set of protocols is presented that are capable of handling a fully dynamic wireless network in which switching centers and base stations are mobile as well as the end users. The protocols provide basic message delivery, network routing information updates, and support for reliable multicasting. There are four contributions of this work: (i) a hierarchical architecture for a fully dynamic wireless network, (ii) improved routing and update protocols with reduced control traffic, (iii) a method to provide reliable multicasting in a wireless environment that is near optimal in terms of the number of messages sent, and (iv) a set of load balancing algorithms that allow the network to autonomously and dynamically reconfigure the network topology to even out the load on the base stations. A detailed simulation of the protocols is developed and exercised to evaluate the performance of the protocols. For point to point delivery, the protocols successfully deliver all packets even when the rate of motion of the terminals causes more than 1/2 of them to be in a transitional state at any time. The results are similar for base station

Efficient power control framework for small-cell heterogeneous networks

Heterogeneous networks are rapidly emerging as one of the key enablers of beyond fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks. It is gradually becoming clear to the network operators that existing cellular networks may not be able to support the traffic demands of the future. Thus, there is an upsurge in the interest of efficiently deploying small-cell networks for accommodating a growing number of user equipment (UEs). This work further extends the state-of-the-art by proposing an optimization framework for reducing the power consumption of small-cell base stations (BSs). Specifically, a novel algorithm has been proposed which dynamically switches off the redundant small-cell BSs based on the traffic demands of the network. Due to the dynamicity of the formulated problem, a new UE admission control policy has been presented when the problem becomes infeasible to solve. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed solution, the simulation results are compared with conventional techniques. It is shown that the proposed power control solution outperforms the conventional approaches both in terms of accommodating more UEs and reducing power consumption.publishe

Reliable Multicast in Heterogeneous Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

In disaster scenarios, communication infrastructure could be damaged orcompletely failed. Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) can be used to substitutefailed communication devices and thus to enable communication. As group communicationis an important part in disaster scenarios, multicast will be used to addressseveral nodes. In this paper, we propose our new reliable multicast protocol RMDA(Reliable Multicast over Delay Tolerant Mobile Ad hoc Networks). We introducean efficient group management approach and a new method for reliable multicastdelivery over Delay Tolerant Networks. We show, that our protocol is adaptive todifferent kinds of MANETs, e.g. with or without clusterheads, respectively. Forthose without, we use our name resolution over adaptive routing approach

Living on the Edge: The Role of Proactive Caching in 5G Wireless Networks

This article explores one of the key enablers of beyond $4$G wireless networks leveraging small cell network deployments, namely proactive caching. Endowed with predictive capabilities and harnessing recent developments in storage, context-awareness and social networks, peak traffic demands can be substantially reduced by proactively serving predictable user demands, via caching at base stations and users' devices. In order to show the effectiveness of proactive caching, we examine two case studies which exploit the spatial and social structure of the network, where proactive caching plays a crucial role. Firstly, in order to alleviate backhaul congestion, we propose a mechanism whereby files are proactively cached during off-peak demands based on file popularity and correlations among users and files patterns. Secondly, leveraging social networks and device-to-device (D2D) communications, we propose a procedure that exploits the social structure of the network by predicting the set of influential users to (proactively) cache strategic contents and disseminate them to their social ties via D2D communications. Exploiting this proactive caching paradigm, numerical results show that important gains can be obtained for each case study, with backhaul savings and a higher ratio of satisfied users of up to $22\%$ and $26\%$, respectively. Higher gains can be further obtained by increasing the storage capability at the network edge.Comment: accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Magazin