Dynamic Capacity Enhancement using a Smart Antenna in Mobile Telecommunications Networks

This work describes an investigation into the performance of antennas for mobile base station applications and techniques for improving the coverage and capacity within a base station cell. The work starts by tracing the development of mobile systems, both in technical and commercial terms, from the earliest analogue systems to present day broadband systems and includes anticipated future developments. This is followed by an outline of how smart antenna systems can be utilised to improve cell coverage and capacity. A novel smart antenna system incorporating an array of slant ± 450 dual- polarised stacked patch elements four columns wide excited by a novel multi-beam forming and beam shaping network has been designed, simulated and implemented. It is found that for an ideal smart antenna array, four narrow overlapping beams, one wide “broadcast channel” beam and right and left shaped beams can be provided. Results are presented for the simulation of the smart antenna system using CST EM simulation software which inherently includes mutual coupling and the effects of a truncated ground plane on the element patterns. The results show some significant changes to the desired set of coverage patterns and various mutual coupling compensation techniques have been reviewed. An improved design technique has been developed for compensating the performance degrading effects of mutual coupling and finite ground plane dimensions in microstrip antenna arrays. The improved technique utilises combination of two previously known techniques: complex excitation weights compensation by inversion of the array mutual coupling scattering matrix and the incorporation of a WAIM (wide angle impedance matching) sheet. The technique has been applied to a novel multi-beam smart antenna array to demonstrate the efficacy of the technique by electromagnetic simulation. In addition, a demonstrator array has been constructed and tested which has yielded a positive conformation of the simulation results. For the developed demonstrator array which provides seven different beams, beams “footprints” have been predicted both for free space propagation and for urban propagation to evaluate the dynamic capacity performance of the smart antenna in a 3G mobile network. The results indicate that sector capacity can be dynamically tailored to user demand profiles by selection of the appropriate beam patterns provided by the novel smart antenna system

Dynamic capacity enhancement using a smart antenna in mobile telecommunications networks

This work describes an investigation into the performance of antennas for mobile base station applications and techniques for improving the coverage and capacity within a base station cell. The work starts by tracing the development of mobile systems, both in technical and commercial terms, from the earliest analogue systems to present day broadband systems and includes anticipated future developments. This is followed by an outline of how smart antenna systems can be utilised to improve cell coverage and capacity. A novel smart antenna system incorporating an array of slant ± 450 dual- polarised stacked patch elements four columns wide excited by a novel multi-beam forming and beam shaping network has been designed, simulated and implemented. It is found that for an ideal smart antenna array, four narrow overlapping beams, one wide “broadcast channel” beam and right and left shaped beams can be provided. Results are presented for the simulation of the smart antenna system using CST EM simulation software which inherently includes mutual coupling and the effects of a truncated ground plane on the element patterns. The results show some significant changes to the desired set of coverage patterns and various mutual coupling compensation techniques have been reviewed. An improved design technique has been developed for compensating the performance degrading effects of mutual coupling and finite ground plane dimensions in microstrip antenna arrays. The improved technique utilises combination of two previously known techniques: complex excitation weights compensation by inversion of the array mutual coupling scattering matrix and the incorporation of a WAIM (wide angle impedance matching) sheet. The technique has been applied to a novel multi-beam smart antenna array to demonstrate the efficacy of the technique by electromagnetic simulation. In addition, a demonstrator array has been constructed and tested which has yielded a positive conformation of the simulation results. For the developed demonstrator array which provides seven different beams, beams “footprints” have been predicted both for free space propagation and for urban propagation to evaluate the dynamic capacity performance of the smart antenna in a 3G mobile network. The results indicate that sector capacity can be dynamically tailored to user demand profiles by selection of the appropriate beam patterns provided by the novel smart antenna system.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Quality of service differentiation for multimedia delivery in wireless LANs

Delivering multimedia content to heterogeneous devices over a variable networking environment while maintaining high quality levels involves many technical challenges. The research reported in this thesis presents a solution for Quality of Service (QoS)-based service differentiation when delivering multimedia content over the wireless LANs. This thesis has three major contributions outlined below: 1. A Model-based Bandwidth Estimation algorithm (MBE), which estimates the available bandwidth based on novel TCP and UDP throughput models over IEEE 802.11 WLANs. MBE has been modelled, implemented, and tested through simulations and real life testing. In comparison with other bandwidth estimation techniques, MBE shows better performance in terms of error rate, overhead, and loss. 2. An intelligent Prioritized Adaptive Scheme (iPAS), which provides QoS service differentiation for multimedia delivery in wireless networks. iPAS assigns dynamic priorities to various streams and determines their bandwidth share by employing a probabilistic approach-which makes use of stereotypes. The total bandwidth to be allocated is estimated using MBE. The priority level of individual stream is variable and dependent on stream-related characteristics and delivery QoS parameters. iPAS can be deployed seamlessly over the original IEEE 802.11 protocols and can be included in the IEEE 802.21 framework in order to optimize the control signal communication. iPAS has been modelled, implemented, and evaluated via simulations. The results demonstrate that iPAS achieves better performance than the equal channel access mechanism over IEEE 802.11 DCF and a service differentiation scheme on top of IEEE 802.11e EDCA, in terms of fairness, throughput, delay, loss, and estimated PSNR. Additionally, both objective and subjective video quality assessment have been performed using a prototype system. 3. A QoS-based Downlink/Uplink Fairness Scheme, which uses the stereotypes-based structure to balance the QoS parameters (i.e. throughput, delay, and loss) between downlink and uplink VoIP traffic. The proposed scheme has been modelled and tested through simulations. The results show that, in comparison with other downlink/uplink fairness-oriented solutions, the proposed scheme performs better in terms of VoIP capacity and fairness level between downlink and uplink traffic

Performance Modelling and Analysis of a New CoMP-based Handover Scheme for Next Generation Wireless Networks. Performance Modelling and Analysis for the Design and Development of a New Handover Scheme for Cell Edge Users in Next Generation Wireless Networks (NGWNs) Based on the Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) Joint Transmission (JT) Technique

Inter-Cell Interference (ICI) will be one of main problems for degrading the performance of future wireless networks at cell edge. This adverse situation will become worst in the presence of dense deployment of micro and macro cells. In this context, the Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) technique was introduced to mitigate ICI in Next Generation Wireless Networks (NGWN) and increase their network performance at cell edge. Even though the CoMP technique provides satisfactory solutions of various problems at cell edge, nevertheless existing CoMP handover schemes do not prevent unnecessary handover initialisation decisions and never discuss the drawbacks of CoMP handover technique such as excessive feedback and resource sharing among UEs. In this research, new CoMP-based handover schemes are proposed in order to minimise unnecessary handover decisions at cell edge and determine solution of drawbacks of CoMP technique in conjunction with signal measurements such as Reference Signal Received Power (RSRP) and Received Signal Received Quality (RSRQ). A combination of calculations of RSRP and RSRQ facilitate a credible decision making process of CoMP mode and handover mode at cell edge. Typical numerical experiments indicate that by triggering the CoMP mode along with solutions of drawbacks, the overall network performance is constantly increase as the number of unnecessary handovers is progressively reduced

Performance analysis of a hybrid topology CDD/TDD-CDMA network architecture

Student Number : 0006936H - MSc research report - School of Electrical and Information Engineering - Faculty of Engineering and the Built EnvironmentCode division duplexing (CDD) has steadily garnered attention in the telecommunication community. In this project report we propose a physical layer implementation of CDD that utilizes orthogonal Gold codes as the means of differentiating transmission directions, in order to implement an ad-hoc networking infrastructure that is overlaid on a standard mobile networking topology, and hence creating a hybrid networking topology. The performance of the CDD based system is then comparatively assessed in two ways: from the perspective of the physical layer using point-to-point simulations and from the perspective of the network layer using an iterative snapshot based simulation where node elements are able to setup connections based on predefined rules

Cellular and Wi-Fi technologies evolution: from complementarity to competition

This PhD thesis has the characteristic to span over a long time because while working on it, I was working as a research engineer at CTTC with highly demanding development duties. This has delayed the deposit more than I would have liked. On the other hand, this has given me the privilege of witnessing and studying how wireless technologies have been evolving over a decade from 4G to 5G and beyond. When I started my PhD thesis, IEEE and 3GPP were defining the two main wireless technologies at the time, Wi-Fi and LTE, for covering two substantially complementary market targets. Wi-Fi was designed to operate mostly indoor, in unlicensed spectrum, and was aimed to be a simple and cheap technology. Its primary technology for coexistence was based on the assumption that the spectrum on which it was operating was for free, and so it was designed with interference avoidance through the famous CSMA/CA protocol. On the other hand, 3GPP was designing technologies for licensed spectrum, a costly kind of spectrum. As a result, LTE was designed to take the best advantage of it while providing the best QoE in mainly outdoor scenarios. The PhD thesis starts in this context and evolves with these two technologies. In the first chapters, the thesis studies radio resource management solutions for standalone operation of Wi-Fi in unlicensed and LTE in licensed spectrum. We anticipated the now fundamental machine learning trend by working on machine learning-based radio resource management solutions to improve LTE and Wi-Fi operation in their respective spectrum. We pay particular attention to small cell deployments aimed at improving the spectrum efficiency in licensed spectrum, reproducing small range scenarios typical of Wi-Fi settings. IEEE and 3GPP followed evolving the technologies over the years: Wi-Fi has grown into a much more complex and sophisticated technology, incorporating the key features of cellular technologies, like HARQ, OFDMA, MU-MIMO, MAC scheduling and spatial reuse. On the other hand, since Release 13, cellular networks have also been designed for unlicensed spectrum. As a result, the two last chapters of this thesis focus on coexistence scenarios, in which LTE needs to be designed to coexist with Wi-Fi fairly, and NR, the radio access for 5G, with Wi-Fi in 5 GHz and WiGig in 60 GHz. Unlike LTE, which was adapted to operate in unlicensed spectrum, NR-U is natively designed with this feature, including its capability to operate in unlicensed in a complete standalone fashion, a fundamental new milestone for cellular. In this context, our focus of analysis changes. We consider that these two technological families are no longer targeting complementarity but are now competing, and we claim that this will be the trend for the years to come. To enable the research in these multi-RAT scenarios, another fundamental result of this PhD thesis, besides the scientific contributions, is the release of high fidelity models for LTE and NR and their coexistence with Wi-Fi and WiGig to the ns-3 open-source community. ns-3 is a popular open-source network simulator, with the characteristic to be multi-RAT and so naturally allows the evaluation of coexistence scenarios between different technologies. These models, for which I led the development, are by academic citations, the most used open-source simulation models for LTE and NR and havereceived fundings from industry (Ubiquisys, WFA, SpiderCloud, Interdigital, Facebook) and federal agencies (NIST, LLNL) over the years.Aquesta tesi doctoral té la característica d’allargar-se durant un llarg període de temps ja que mentre treballava en ella, treballava com a enginyera investigadora a CTTC amb tasques de desenvolupament molt exigents. Això ha endarrerit el dipositar-la més del que m’hagués agradat. D’altra banda, això m’ha donat el privilegi de ser testimoni i estudiar com han evolucionat les tecnologies sense fils durant més d’una dècada des del 4G fins al 5G i més enllà. Quan vaig començar la tesi doctoral, IEEE i 3GPP estaven definint les dues tecnologies sense fils principals en aquell moment, Wi-Fi i LTE, que cobreixen dos objectius de mercat substancialment complementaris. Wi-Fi va ser dissenyat per funcionar principalment en interiors, en espectre sense llicència, i pretenia ser una tecnologia senzilla i barata. La seva tecnologia primària per a la convivència es basava en el supòsit que l’espectre en el que estava operant era de franc, i, per tant, es va dissenyar simplement evitant interferències a través del famós protocol CSMA/CA. D’altra banda, 3GPP estava dissenyant tecnologies per a espectres amb llicència, un tipus d’espectre costós. Com a resultat, LTE està dissenyat per treure’n el màxim profit alhora que proporciona el millor QoE en escenaris principalment a l’aire lliure. La tesi doctoral comença amb aquest context i evoluciona amb aquestes dues tecnologies. En els primers capítols, estudiem solucions de gestió de recursos de radio per a operacions en espectre de Wi-Fi sense llicència i LTE amb llicència. Hem anticipat l’actual tendència fonamental d’aprenentatge automàtic treballant solucions de gestió de recursos de radio basades en l’aprenentatge automàtic per millorar l’LTE i Wi-Fi en el seu espectre respectiu. Prestem especial atenció als desplegaments de cèl·lules petites destinades a millorar la eficiència d’espectre llicenciat, reproduint escenaris de petit abast típics de la configuració Wi-Fi. IEEE i 3GPP van seguir evolucionant les tecnologies al llarg dels anys: El Wi-Fi s’ha convertit en una tecnologia molt més complexa i sofisticada, incorporant les característiques clau de les tecnologies cel·lulars, com ara HARQ i la reutilització espacial. D’altra banda, des de la versió 13, també s’han dissenyat xarxes cel·lulars per a espectre sense llicència. Com a resultat, els dos darrers capítols d’aquesta tesi es centren en aquests escenaris de convivència, on s’ha de dissenyar LTE per conviure amb la Wi-Fi de manera justa, i NR, l’accés a la radio per a 5G amb Wi-Fi a 5 GHz i WiGig a 60 GHz. A diferència de LTE, que es va adaptar per funcionar en espectre sense llicència, NR-U està dissenyat de forma nativa amb aquesta característica, inclosa la seva capacitat per operar sense llicència de forma autònoma completa, una nova fita fonamental per al mòbil. En aquest context, el nostre focus d’anàlisi canvia. Considerem que aquestes dues famílies de tecnologia ja no estan orientades cap a la complementarietat, sinó que ara competeixen, i afirmem que aquesta serà el tendència per als propers anys. Per permetre la investigació en aquests escenaris multi-RAT, un altre resultat fonamental d’aquesta tesi doctoral, a més de les aportacions científiques, és l’alliberament de models d’alta fidelitat per a LTE i NR i la seva coexistència amb Wi-Fi a la comunitat de codi obert ns-3. ns-3 és un popular simulador de xarxa de codi obert, amb la característica de ser multi-RAT i, per tant, permet l’avaluació de manera natural d’escenaris de convivència entre diferents tecnologies. Aquests models, pels quals he liderat el desenvolupament, són per cites acadèmiques, els models de simulació de codi obert més utilitzats per a LTE i NR i que han rebut finançament de la indústria (Ubiquisys, WFA, SpiderCloud, Interdigital, Facebook) i agències federals (NIST, LLNL) al llarg dels anys.Esta tesis doctoral tiene la característica de extenderse durante mucho tiempo porque mientras trabajaba en ella, trabajaba como ingeniera de investigación en CTTC con tareas de desarrollo muy exigentes. Esto ha retrasado el depósito más de lo que me hubiera gustado. Por otro lado, gracias a ello, he tenido el privilegio de presenciar y estudiar como las tecnologías inalámbricas han evolucionado durante una década, de 4G a 5G y más allá. Cuando comencé mi tesis doctoral, IEEE y 3GPP estaban definiendo las dos principales tecnologías inalámbricas en ese momento, Wi-Fi y LTE, cumpliendo dos objetivos de mercado sustancialmente complementarios. Wi-Fi fue diseñado para funcionar principalmente en interiores, en un espectro sin licencia, y estaba destinado a ser una tecnología simple y barata. Su tecnología primaria para la convivencia se basaba en el supuesto en que el espectro en el que estaba operando era gratis, y así fue diseñado simplemente evitando interferencias a través del famoso protocolo CSMA/CA. Por otro lado, 3GPP estaba diseñando tecnologías para espectro con licencia, un tipo de espectro costoso. Como resultado, LTE está diseñado para aprovechar el espectro al máximo proporcionando al mismo tiempo el mejor QoE en escenarios principalmente al aire libre. La tesis doctoral parte de este contexto y evoluciona con estas dos tecnologías. En los primeros capítulos, estudiamos las soluciones de gestión de recursos de radio para operación en espectro Wi-Fi sin licencia y LTE con licencia. Anticipamos la tendencia ahora fundamental de aprendizaje automático trabajando en soluciones de gestión de recursos de radio para mejorar LTE y funcionamiento deWi-Fi en su respectivo espectro. Prestamos especial atención a las implementaciones de células pequeñas destinadas a mejorar la eficiencia de espectro licenciado, reproduciendo los típicos escenarios de rango pequeño de la configuración Wi-Fi. IEEE y 3GPP siguieron evolucionando las tecnologías a lo largo de los años: Wi-Fi se ha convertido en una tecnología mucho más compleja y sofisticada, incorporando las características clave de las tecnologías celulares, como HARQ, OFDMA, MU-MIMO, MAC scheduling y la reutilización espacial. Por otro lado, desde la Release 13, también se han diseñado redes celulares para espectro sin licencia. Como resultado, los dos últimos capítulos de esta tesis se centran en estos escenarios de convivencia, donde LTE debe diseñarse para coexistir con Wi-Fi de manera justa, y NR, el acceso por radio para 5G con Wi-Fi en 5 GHz y WiGig en 60 GHz. A diferencia de LTE, que se adaptó para operar en espectro sin licencia, NR-U está diseñado de forma nativa con esta función, incluyendo su capacidad para operar sin licencia de forma completamente independiente, un nuevo hito fundamental para los celulares. En este contexto, cambia nuestro enfoque de análisis. Consideramos que estas dos familias tecnológicas ya no tienen como objetivo la complementariedad, sino que ahora están compitiendo, y afirmamos que esta será la tendencia para los próximos años. Para permitir la investigación en estos escenarios de múltiples RAT, otro resultado fundamental de esta tesis doctoral, además de los aportes científicos, es el lanzamiento de modelos de alta fidelidad para LTE y NR y su coexistencia con Wi-Fi y WiGig a la comunidad de código abierto de ns-3. ns-3 es un simulador popular de red de código abierto, con la característica de ser multi-RAT y así, naturalmente, permite la evaluación de escenarios de convivencia entre diferentes tecnologías. Estos modelos, para los cuales lideré el desarrollo, son por citas académicas, los modelos de simulación de código abierto más utilizados para LTE y NR y han recibido fondos de la industria (Ubiquisys, WFA, SpiderCloud, Interdigital, Facebook) y agencias federales (NIST, LLNL) a lo largo de los años.Postprint (published version

Measurement and Optimization of LTE Performance

4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile system is the fourth generation communication system adopted worldwide to provide high-speed data connections and high-quality voice calls. Given the recent deployment by mobile service providers, unlike GSM and UMTS, LTE can be still considered to be in its early stages and therefore many topics still raise great interest among the international scientific research community: network performance assessment, network optimization, selective scheduling, interference management and coexistence with other communication systems in the unlicensed band, methods to evaluate human exposure to electromagnetic radiation are, as a matter of fact, still open issues. In this work techniques adopted to increase LTE radio performances are investigated. One of the most wide-spread solutions proposed by the standard is to implement MIMO techniques and within a few years, to overcome the scarcity of spectrum, LTE network operators will offload data traffic by accessing the unlicensed 5 GHz frequency. Our Research deals with an evaluation of 3GPP standard in a real test best scenario to evaluate network behavior and performance

Performance analysis of 4G wireless networks using system level simulator

Doutoramento em Engenharia ElectrotécnicaIn the last decade, mobile wireless communications have witnessed an explosive growth in the user’s penetration rate and their widespread deployment around the globe. In particular, a research topic of particular relevance in telecommunications nowadays is related to the design and implementation of mobile communication systems of 4th generation (4G). 4G networks will be characterized by the support of multiple radio access technologies in a core network fully compliant with the Internet Protocol (all IP paradigms). Such networks will sustain the stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements and the expected high data rates from the type of multimedia applications (i.e. YouTube and Skype) to be available in the near future. Therefore, 4G wireless communications system will be of paramount importance on the development of the information society in the near future. As 4G wireless services will continue to increase, this will put more and more pressure on the spectrum availability. There is a worldwide recognition that methods of spectrum managements have reached their limit and are no longer optimal, therefore new paradigms must be sought. Studies show that most of the assigned spectrum is under-utilized, thus the problem in most cases is inefficient spectrum management rather spectrum shortage. There are currently trends towards a more liberalized approach of spectrum management, which are tightly linked to what is commonly termed as Cognitive Radio (CR). Furthermore, conventional deployment of 4G wireless systems (one BS in cell and mobile deploy around it) are known to have problems in providing fairness (users closer to the BS are more benefited relatively to the cell edge users) and in covering some zones affected by shadowing, therefore the use of relays has been proposed as a solution. To evaluate and analyse the performances of 4G wireless systems software tools are normally used. Software tools have become more and more mature in recent years and their need to provide a high level evaluation of proposed algorithms and protocols is now more important. The system level simulation (SLS) tools provide a fundamental and flexible way to test all the envisioned algorithms and protocols under realistic conditions, without the need to deal with the problems of live networks or reduced scope prototypes. Furthermore, the tools allow network designers a rapid collection of a wide range of performance metrics that are useful for the analysis and optimization of different algorithms. This dissertation proposes the design and implementation of conventional system level simulator (SLS), which afterwards enhances for the 4G wireless technologies namely cognitive Radios (IEEE802.22) and Relays (IEEE802.16j). SLS is then used for the analysis of proposed algorithms and protocols.FC

Multilayer optimization in radio resource allocation for the packet transmission in wireless networks

Doutoramento em Engenharia ElectrotécnicaNa última década tem-se assistido a um crescimento exponencial das redes de comunicações sem fios, nomeadamente no que se refere a taxa de penetração do serviço prestado e na implementação de novas infra-estruturas em todo o globo. É ponto assente neste momento que esta tendência irá não só continuar como se fortalecer devido à convergência que é esperada entre as redes móveis sem fio e a disponibilização de serviços de banda larga para a rede Internet fixa, numa evolução para um paradigma de uma arquitectura integrada e baseada em serviços e aplicações IP. Por este motivo, as comunicações móveis sem fios irão ter um papel fundamental no desenvolvimento da sociedade de informação a médio e longo prazos. A estratégia seguida no projecto e implementação das redes móveis celulares da actual geração (2G e 3G) foi a da estratificação da sua arquitectura protocolar numa estrutura modular em camadas estanques, onde cada camada do modelo é responsável pela implementação de um conjunto de funcionalidades. Neste modelo a comunicação dá-se apenas entre camadas adjacentes através de primitivas de comunicação pré-estabelecidas. Este modelo de arquitectura resulta numa mais fácil implementação e introdução de novas funcionalidades na rede. Entretanto, o facto das camadas inferiores do modelo protocolar não utilizarem informação disponibilizada pelas camadas superiores, e vice-versa acarreta uma degradação no desempenho do sistema. Este paradigma é particularmente importante quando sistemas de antenas múltiplas são implementados (sistemas MIMO). Sistemas de antenas múltiplas introduzem um grau adicional de liberdade no que respeita a atribuição de recursos rádio: o domínio espacial. Contrariamente a atribuição de recursos no domínio do tempo e da frequência, no domínio espacial os recursos rádio mapeados no domínio espacial não podem ser assumidos como sendo completamente ortogonais, devido a interferência resultante do facto de vários terminais transmitirem no mesmo canal e/ou slots temporais mas em feixes espaciais diferentes. Sendo assim, a disponibilidade de informação relativa ao estado dos recursos rádio às camadas superiores do modelo protocolar é de fundamental importância na satisfação dos critérios de qualidade de serviço exigidos. Uma forma eficiente de gestão dos recursos rádio exige a implementação de algoritmos de agendamento de pacotes de baixo grau de complexidade, que definem os níveis de prioridade no acesso a esses recursos por base dos utilizadores com base na informação disponibilizada quer pelas camadas inferiores quer pelas camadas superiores do modelo. Este novo paradigma de comunicação, designado por cross-layer resulta na maximização da capacidade de transporte de dados por parte do canal rádio móvel, bem como a satisfação dos requisitos de qualidade de serviço derivados a partir da camada de aplicação do modelo. Na sua elaboração, procurou-se que o standard IEEE 802.16e, conhecido por Mobile WiMAX respeitasse as especificações associadas aos sistemas móveis celulares de quarta geração. A arquitectura escalonável, o baixo custo de implementação e as elevadas taxas de transmissão de dados resultam num processo de multiplexagem de dados e valores baixos no atraso decorrente da transmissão de pacotes, os quais são atributos fundamentais para a disponibilização de serviços de banda larga. Da mesma forma a comunicação orientada à comutação de pacotes, inenente na camada de acesso ao meio, é totalmente compatível com as exigências em termos da qualidade de serviço dessas aplicações. Sendo assim, o Mobile WiMAX parece satisfazer os requisitos exigentes das redes móveis de quarta geração. Nesta tese procede-se à investigação, projecto e implementação de algoritmos de encaminhamento de pacotes tendo em vista a eficiente gestão do conjunto de recursos rádio nos domínios do tempo, frequência e espacial das redes móveis celulares, tendo como caso prático as redes móveis celulares suportadas no standard IEEE802.16e. Os algoritmos propostos combinam métricas provenientes da camada física bem como os requisitos de qualidade de serviço das camadas superiores, de acordo com a arquitectura de redes baseadas no paradigma do cross-layer. O desempenho desses algoritmos é analisado a partir de simulações efectuadas por um simulador de sistema, numa plataforma que implementa as camadas física e de acesso ao meio do standard IEEE802.16e.In the last decade mobile wireless communications have witnessed an explosive growth in the user’s penetration rate and their widespread deployment around the globe. It is expected that this tendency will continue to increase with the convergence of fixed Internet wired networks with mobile ones and with the evolution to the full IP architecture paradigm. Therefore mobile wireless communications will be of paramount importance on the development of the information society of the near future. In particular a research topic of particular relevance in telecommunications nowadays is related to the design and implementation of mobile communication systems of 4th generation. 4G networks will be characterized by the support of multiple radio access technologies in a core network fully compliant with the Internet Protocol (all IP paradigm). Such networks will sustain the stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements and the expected high data rates from the type of multimedia applications to be available in the near future. The approach followed in the design and implementation of the mobile wireless networks of current generation (2G and 3G) has been the stratification of the architecture into a communication protocol model composed by a set of layers, in which each one encompasses some set of functionalities. In such protocol layered model, communications is only allowed between adjacent layers and through specific interface service points. This modular concept eases the implementation of new functionalities as the behaviour of each layer in the protocol stack is not affected by the others. However, the fact that lower layers in the protocol stack model do not utilize information available from upper layers, and vice versa, downgrades the performance achieved. This is particularly relevant if multiple antenna systems, in a MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) configuration, are implemented. MIMO schemes introduce another degree of freedom for radio resource allocation: the space domain. Contrary to the time and frequency domains, radio resources mapped into the spatial domain cannot be assumed as completely orthogonal, due to the amount of interference resulting from users transmitting in the same frequency sub-channel and/or time slots but in different spatial beams. Therefore, the availability of information regarding the state of radio resources, from lower to upper layers, is of fundamental importance in the prosecution of the levels of QoS expected from those multimedia applications. In order to match applications requirements and the constraints of the mobile radio channel, in the last few years researches have proposed a new paradigm for the layered architecture for communications: the cross-layer design framework. In a general way, the cross-layer design paradigm refers to a protocol design in which the dependence between protocol layers is actively exploited, by breaking out the stringent rules which restrict the communication only between adjacent layers in the original reference model, and allowing direct interaction among different layers of the stack. An efficient management of the set of available radio resources demand for the implementation of efficient and low complexity packet schedulers which prioritize user’s transmissions according to inputs provided from lower as well as upper layers in the protocol stack, fully compliant with the cross-layer design paradigm. Specifically, efficiently designed packet schedulers for 4G networks should result in the maximization of the capacity available, through the consideration of the limitations imposed by the mobile radio channel and comply with the set of QoS requirements from the application layer. IEEE 802.16e standard, also named as Mobile WiMAX, seems to comply with the specifications of 4G mobile networks. The scalable architecture, low cost implementation and high data throughput, enable efficient data multiplexing and low data latency, which are attributes essential to enable broadband data services. Also, the connection oriented approach of Its medium access layer is fully compliant with the quality of service demands from such applications. Therefore, Mobile WiMAX seems to be a promising 4G mobile wireless networks candidate. In this thesis it is proposed the investigation, design and implementation of packet scheduling algorithms for the efficient management of the set of available radio resources, in time, frequency and spatial domains of the Mobile WiMAX networks. The proposed algorithms combine input metrics from physical layer and QoS requirements from upper layers, according to the crosslayer design paradigm. Proposed schedulers are evaluated by means of system level simulations, conducted in a system level simulation platform implementing the physical and medium access control layers of the IEEE802.16e standard

Towards reliable communication in LTE-A connected heterogeneous machine to machine network

Machine to machine (M2M) communication is an emerging technology that enables heterogeneous devices to communicate with each other without human intervention and thus forming so-called Internet of Things (IoTs). Wireless cellular networks (WCNs) play a significant role in the successful deployment of M2M communication. Specially the ongoing massive deployment of long term evolution advanced (LTE-A) makes it possible to establish machine type communication (MTC) in most urban and remote areas, and by using LTE-A backhaul network, a seamless network communication is being established between MTC-devices and-applications. However, the extensive network coverage does not ensure a successful implementation of M2M communication in the LTE-A, and therefore there are still some challenges. Energy efficient reliable transmission is perhaps the most compelling demand for various M2M applications. Among the factors affecting reliability of M2M communication are the high endto-end delay and high bit error rate. The objective of the thesis is to provide reliable M2M communication in LTE-A network. In this aim, to alleviate the signalling congestion on air interface and efficient data aggregation we consider a cluster based architecture where the MTC devices are grouped into number of clusters and traffics are forwarded through some special nodes called cluster heads (CHs) to the base station (BS) using single or multi-hop transmissions. In many deployment scenarios, some machines are allowed to move and change their location in the deployment area with very low mobility. In practice, the performance of data transmission often degrades with the increase of distance between neighboring CHs. CH needs to be reselected in such cases. However, frequent re-selection of CHs results in counter effect on routing and reconfiguration of resource allocation associated with CH-dependent protocols. In addition, the link quality between a CH-CH and CH-BS are very often affected by various dynamic environmental factors such as heat and humidity, obstacles and RF interferences. Since CH aggregates the traffic from all cluster members, failure of the CH means that the full cluster will fail. Many solutions have been proposed to combat with error prone wireless channel such as automatic repeat request (ARQ) and multipath routing. Though the above mentioned techniques improve the communication reliability but intervene the communication efficiency. In the former scheme, the transmitter retransmits the whole packet even though the part of the packet has been received correctly and in the later one, the receiver may receive the same information from multiple paths; thus both techniques are bandwidth and energy inefficient. In addition, with retransmission, overall end to end delay may exceed the maximum allowable delay budget. Based on the aforementioned observations, we identify CH-to-CH channel is one of the bottlenecks to provide reliable communication in cluster based multihop M2M network and present a full solution to support fountain coded cooperative communications. Our solution covers many aspects from relay selection to cooperative formation to meet the user’s QoS requirements. In the first part of the thesis, we first design a rateless-coded-incremental-relay selection (RCIRS) algorithm based on greedy techniques to guarantee the required data rate with a minimum cost. After that, we develop fountain coded cooperative communication protocols to facilitate the data transmission between two neighbor CHs. In the second part, we propose joint network and fountain coding schemes for reliable communication. Through coupling channel coding and network coding simultaneously in the physical layer, joint network and fountain coding schemes efficiently exploit the redundancy of both codes and effectively combat the detrimental effect of fading conditions in wireless channels. In the proposed scheme, after correctly decoding the information from different sources, a relay node applies network and fountain coding on the received signals and then transmits to the destination in a single transmission. Therefore, the proposed schemes exploit the diversity and coding gain to improve the system performance. In the third part, we focus on the reliable uplink transmission between CHs and BS where CHs transmit to BS directly or with the help of the LTE-A relay nodes (RN). We investigate both type-I and type-II enhanced LTE-A networks and propose a set of joint network and fountain coding schemes to enhance the link robustness. Finally, the proposed solutions are evaluated through extensive numerical simulations and the numerical results are presented to provide a comparison with the related works found in the literature