A Relay Can Increase Degrees of Freedom in Bursty Interference Networks

We investigate the benefits of relays in multi-user wireless networks with bursty user traffic, where intermittent data traffic restricts the users to bursty transmissions. To this end, we study a two-user bursty MIMO Gaussian interference channel with a relay, where two Bernoulli random states govern the bursty user traffic. We show that an in-band relay can provide a degrees of freedom (DoF) gain in this bursty channel. This beneficial role of in-band relays in the bursty channel is in direct contrast to their role in the non-bursty channel which is not as significant to provide a DoF gain. More importantly, we demonstrate that for certain antenna configurations, an in-band relay can help achieve interference-free performances with increased DoF. We find the benefits particularly substantial with low data traffic, as the DoF gain can grow linearly with the number of antennas at the relay. In this work, we first derive an outer bound from which we obtain a necessary condition for interference-free DoF performances. Then, we develop a novel scheme that exploits information of the bursty traffic states to achieve them.Comment: submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Robust Signaling for Bursty Interference

This paper studies a bursty interference channel, where the presence/absence of interference is modeled by a block-i.i.d.\ Bernoulli process that stays constant for a duration of $T$ symbols (referred to as coherence block) and then changes independently to a new state. We consider both a quasi-static setup, where the interference state remains constant during the whole transmission of the codeword, and an ergodic setup, where a codeword spans several coherence blocks. For the quasi-static setup, we study the largest rate of a coding strategy that provides reliable communication at a basic rate and allows an increased (opportunistic) rate when there is no interference. For the ergodic setup, we study the largest achievable rate. We study how non-causal knowledge of the interference state, referred to as channel-state information (CSI), affects the achievable rates. We derive converse and achievability bounds for (i) local CSI at the receiver-side only; (ii) local CSI at the transmitter- and receiver-side, and (iii) global CSI at all nodes. Our bounds allow us to identify when interference burstiness is beneficial and in which scenarios global CSI outperforms local CSI. The joint treatment of the quasi-static and ergodic setup further allows for a thorough comparison of these two setups.Comment: 67 pages, 39 figure

On the Interaction between TCP and the Wireless Channel in CDMA2000 Networks

In this work, we conducted extensive active measurements on a large nationwide CDMA2000 1xRTT network in order to characterize the impact of both the Radio Link Protocol and more importantly, the wireless scheduler, on TCP. Our measurements include standard TCP/UDP logs, as well as detailed RF layer statistics that allow observability into RF dynamics. With the help of a robust correlation measure, normalized mutual information, we were able to quantify the impact of these two RF factors on TCP performance metrics such as the round trip time, packet loss rate, instantaneous throughput etc. We show that the variable channel rate has the larger impact on TCP behavior when compared to the Radio Link Protocol. Furthermore, we expose and rank the factors that influence the assigned channel rate itself and in particular, demonstrate the sensitivity of the wireless scheduler to the data sending rate. Thus, TCP is adapting its rate to match the available network capacity, while the rate allocated by the wireless scheduler is influenced by the sender's behavior. Such a system is best described as a closed loop system with two feedback controllers, the TCP controller and the wireless scheduler, each one affecting the other's decisions. In this work, we take the first steps in characterizing such a system in a realistic environment

Wireless model-based predictive networked control system over cooperative wireless network

Owing to their distributed architecture, networked control systems (NCSs) are proven to be feasible in scenarios where a spatially distributed feedback control system is required. Traditionally, such NCSs operate over real-time wired networks. Recently, in order to achieve the utmost flexibility, scalability, ease of deployment, and maintainability, wireless networks such as IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (LANs) are being preferred over dedicated wired networks. However, conventional NCSs with event-triggered controllers and actuators cannot operate over such general purpose wireless networks since the stability of the system is compromised due to unbounded delays and unpredictable packet losses that are typical in the wireless medium. Approaching the wireless networked control problem from two perspectives, this work introduces a practical wireless NCS and an implementation of a cooperative medium access control protocol that work jointly to achieve decent control under severe impairments, such as unbounded delay, bursts of packet loss and ambient wireless traffic. The proposed system is evaluated on a dedicated test platform under numerous scenarios and significant performance gains are observed, making cooperative communications a strong candidate for improving the reliability of industrial wireless networks

TCP over CDMA2000 Networks: A Cross-Layer Measurement Study

Modern cellular channels in 3G networks incorporate sophisticated power control and dynamic rate adaptation which can have significant impact on adaptive transport layer protocols, such as TCP. Though there exists studies that have evaluated the performance of TCP over such networks, they are based solely on observations at the transport layer and hence have no visibility into the impact of lower layer dynamics, which are a key characteristic of these networks. In this work, we present a detailed characterization of TCP behavior based on cross-layer measurement of transport layer, as well as RF and MAC layer parameters. In particular, through a series of active TCP/UDP experiments and measurement of the relevant variables at all three layers, we characterize both, the wireless scheduler and the radio link protocol in a commercial CDMA2000 network and assess their impact on TCP dynamics. Somewhat surprisingly, our findings indicate that the wireless scheduler is mostly insensitive to channel quality and sector load over short timescales and is mainly affected by the transport layer data rate. Furthermore, with the help of a robust correlation measure, Normalized Mutual Information, we were able to quantify the impact of the wireless scheduler and the radio link protocol on various TCP parameters such as the round trip time, throughput and packet loss rate

Energy and bursty packet loss tradeoff over fading channels: a system-level model

Energy efficiency and quality of service (QoS) guarantees are the key design goals for the 5G wireless communication systems. In this context, we discuss a multiuser scheduling scheme over fading channels for loss tolerant applications. The loss tolerance of the application is characterized in terms of different parameters that contribute to quality of experience (QoE) for the application. The mobile users are scheduled opportunistically such that a minimum QoS is guaranteed. We propose an opportunistic scheduling scheme and address the cross-layer design framework when channel state information (CSI) is not perfectly available at the transmitter and the receiver. We characterize the system energy as a function of different QoS and channel state estimation error parameters. The optimization problem is formulated using Markov chain framework and solved using stochastic optimization techniques. The results demonstrate that the parameters characterizing the packet loss are tightly coupled and relaxation of one parameter does not benefit the system much if the other constraints are tight. We evaluate the energy-performance tradeoff numerically and show the effect of channel uncertainty on the packet scheduler design

Wireless industrial monitoring and control networks: the journey so far and the road ahead

While traditional wired communication technologies have played a crucial role in industrial monitoring and control networks over the past few decades, they are increasingly proving to be inadequate to meet the highly dynamic and stringent demands of today’s industrial applications, primarily due to the very rigid nature of wired infrastructures. Wireless technology, however, through its increased pervasiveness, has the potential to revolutionize the industry, not only by mitigating the problems faced by wired solutions, but also by introducing a completely new class of applications. While present day wireless technologies made some preliminary inroads in the monitoring domain, they still have severe limitations especially when real-time, reliable distributed control operations are concerned. This article provides the reader with an overview of existing wireless technologies commonly used in the monitoring and control industry. It highlights the pros and cons of each technology and assesses the degree to which each technology is able to meet the stringent demands of industrial monitoring and control networks. Additionally, it summarizes mechanisms proposed by academia, especially serving critical applications by addressing the real-time and reliability requirements of industrial process automation. The article also describes certain key research problems from the physical layer communication for sensor networks and the wireless networking perspective that have yet to be addressed to allow the successful use of wireless technologies in industrial monitoring and control networks

Capacity limits of bursty interference channels

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorThis dissertation studies the effects of interference burstiness in the transmission of data in wireless networks. In particular, we investigate the effects of this phenomenon on the largest data rate at which one can communicate with a vanishing small probability of error, i.e., on channel capacity. Specifically, we study the capacity of two different channel models as described in the next sections. Linear deterministic bursty interference channel. First, we consider a two-user linear deterministic bursty interference channel (IC), where the presence or absence of interference is modeled by a block- independent and identically distributed (IID) Bernoulli process that stays constant for a duration of T consecutive symbols (this is sometimes referred to as a coherence block) and then changes independently to a new interference state. We assume that the channel coefficients of the communication and interference links remain constant during the whole message transmission. For this channel, we consider both its quasi-static setup where the interference state remains constant during the whole transmission of the codeword (which corresponds to the case whether the blocklength N is smaller than T) and its ergodic setup where a codeword spans several coherence blocks. For the quasi-static setup, we follow the seminal works by Khude, Prabhakaran and Viswanath and study the largest sum rate of a coding strategy that provides reliable communication at a basic (or worstcase) rate R and allows an increased (opportunistic) rate ΔR in absence of interference. For the ergodic scenario, we study the largest achievable sum rate as commonly considered in the multi-user information theory literature. We study how (noncausal) knowledge of the interference state, referred to as channel state information (CSI), affects the sum capacity. Specifically, for both scenarios, we derive converse and achievability bounds on the sum capacity for (i) local CSI at the receiverside only; (ii) when each transmitter and receiver has local CSI, and (iii) global CSI at all nodes, assuming both that interference states are independent of each other and that they are fully correlated. Our bounds allow us to identify regions and conditions where interference burstiness is beneficial and in which scenarios global CSI improves upon local CSI. Specifically, we show the following: • Exploiting burstiness: For the quasi-static scenario we have shown that in presence of local CSI, burstiness is only beneficial if the interference region is very weak or weak. In contrast, for global CSI, burstiness is beneficial for all interference regions, except the very strong interference region, where the sum capacity corresponds to that of two parallel channels without interference. For the ergodic scenario, we have shown that, under global CSI, burstiness is beneficial for all interference regions and all possible values of p. For local CSI at the receiver-side only, burstiness is beneficial for all values of p and for very weak and weak interference regions. However, for moderate and strong interference regions, burstiness is only of clear benefit if the interference is present at most half of the time. • Exploiting CSI: For the quasi-static scenario, local CSI at the transmitter is not beneficial. This is in stark contrast to the ergodic scenario, where local CSI at the transmitter-side is beneficial. Intuitively, in the ergodic scenario the input distributions depend on the realizations of the interference states. Hence, adapting the input distributions to these realizations increases the sum capacity. In contrast, in the quasi-static case, the worst-case scenario (presence of interference) and the best-case scenario (absence of interference) are treated separately. Hence, there is no difference to the case of having local CSI only at the receiver side. Featuring global CSI at all nodes yields an increased sum rate for both the quasi-static and the ergodic scenarios. The joint treatment of the quasi-static and the ergodic scenarios allows us to thoroughly compare the sum capacities of these two scenarios. While the converse bounds for the quasi-static scenario and local CSI at the receiver-side appeared before in the literature, we present a novel proof based on an information density approach and the Verd´u-Han lemma. This approach does not only allow for rigorous yet clear proofs, it also enables more refined analyses of the probabilities of error that worst-case and opportunistic messages can be decoded correctly. For the converse bounds in the ergodic scenario, we use Fano’s inequality as the standard approach to derive converse bounds in the multi-user information theory literature. Bursty noncoherent wireless networks. The linear deterministic model can be viewed as a rough approximation of a fading channel, which has additive and multiplicative noise. The multiplicative noise is referred to as fading. As we have seen in the previous section, the linear deterministic model provides a rough understanding of the effects of interference burstiness on the capacity of the two-user IC. Now, we extend our analysis to a wireless network with a very large number of users and we do not approximate the fading channel by a linear deterministic model. That is, we consider a memoryless flat-fading channel with an infinite number of interferers. We incorporate interference burstiness by an IID Bernoulli process that stays constant during the whole transmission of the codeword. The channel capacity of wireless networks is often studied under the assumption that the communicating nodes have perfect knowledge of the fading coefficients in the network. However, it is prima-facie unclear whether this perfect knowledge of the channel coefficients can actually be obtained in practical systems. For this reason, we study in this dissertation the channel capacity of a noncoherent model where the nodes do not have perfect knowledge of the fading coefficients. More precisely, we assume that the nodes know only the statistics of the channel coefficients but not their realizations. We further assume that the interference state (modeling interference burstiness) is known non-causally at the receiver-side only. To the best of our knowledge, one of the few works that studies the capacity of noncoherent wireless networks (without considering interference burstiness) is by Lozano, Heath, and Andrews. Inter alia, Lozano et al. show that in the absence of perfect knowledge of the channel coefficients, if the channel inputs are given by the square-root of the transmit power times a power-independent random variable, and if interference is always present (hence, it is non-bursty), then the achievable information rate is bounded in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). However, the considered inputs do not necessarily achieve capacity, so one may argue that the information rate is bounded in the SNR because of the suboptimal input distribution. Therefore, in our analysis, we allow the input distribution to change arbitrarily with the SNR. We analyze the asymptotic behavior of the channel capacity in the limit as the SNR tends to infinity. We assume that all nodes (transmitting and interfering) use the same codebook. This implies that each node is transmitting at the same rate, while at the same time it keeps the analysis tractable. We demonstrate that if the nodes do not cooperate and if the variances of the path gains decay exponentially or slower, then the achievable information rate remains bounded in the SNR, even if the input distribution is allowed to change arbitrarily with the transmit power, irrespective of the interference burstiness. Specifically, for this channel, we show the following: • The channel capacity is bounded in the SNR. This suggests that noncoherent wireless networks are extremely power inefficient at high SNR. • Our bound further shows that interference burstiness does not change the behavior of channel capacity. While our upper bound on the channel capacity grows as the channel becomes more bursty, it remains bounded in the SNR. Thus, interference burstiness cannot be exploited to mitigate the power inefficiency at high SNR. Possible strategies that could mitigate the power inefficiency of noncoherent wireless networks and that have not been explored in this thesis are cooperation between users and improved channel estimation strategies. Indeed, coherent wireless networks, in which users have perfect knowledge of the fading coefficients, have a capacity that grows to infinity with the SNR. Furthermore, for such networks, the most efficient transmission strategies, such as interference alignment, rely on cooperation. Our results suggest that these two strategies may be essential to obtain an unbounded capacity in the SNR.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Multimedia y Comunicaciones por la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid y la Universidad Rey Juan CarlosPresidente: Ignacio Santamaría Caballero.- Secretario: David Ramírez García, David.- Vocal: Paul de Kerre