Cellular, Wide-Area, and Non-Terrestrial IoT: A Survey on 5G Advances and the Road Towards 6G

The next wave of wireless technologies is proliferating in connecting things among themselves as well as to humans. In the era of the Internet of things (IoT), billions of sensors, machines, vehicles, drones, and robots will be connected, making the world around us smarter. The IoT will encompass devices that must wirelessly communicate a diverse set of data gathered from the environment for myriad new applications. The ultimate goal is to extract insights from this data and develop solutions that improve quality of life and generate new revenue. Providing large-scale, long-lasting, reliable, and near real-time connectivity is the major challenge in enabling a smart connected world. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on existing and emerging communication solutions for serving IoT applications in the context of cellular, wide-area, as well as non-terrestrial networks. Specifically, wireless technology enhancements for providing IoT access in fifth-generation (5G) and beyond cellular networks, and communication networks over the unlicensed spectrum are presented. Aligned with the main key performance indicators of 5G and beyond 5G networks, we investigate solutions and standards that enable energy efficiency, reliability, low latency, and scalability (connection density) of current and future IoT networks. The solutions include grant-free access and channel coding for short-packet communications, non-orthogonal multiple access, and on-device intelligence. Further, a vision of new paradigm shifts in communication networks in the 2030s is provided, and the integration of the associated new technologies like artificial intelligence, non-terrestrial networks, and new spectra is elaborated. Finally, future research directions toward beyond 5G IoT networks are pointed out.Comment: Submitted for review to IEEE CS&

Radio Communications

In the last decades the restless evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) brought to a deep transformation of our habits. The growth of the Internet and the advances in hardware and software implementations modified our way to communicate and to share information. In this book, an overview of the major issues faced today by researchers in the field of radio communications is given through 35 high quality chapters written by specialists working in universities and research centers all over the world. Various aspects will be deeply discussed: channel modeling, beamforming, multiple antennas, cooperative networks, opportunistic scheduling, advanced admission control, handover management, systems performance assessment, routing issues in mobility conditions, localization, web security. Advanced techniques for the radio resource management will be discussed both in single and multiple radio technologies; either in infrastructure, mesh or ad hoc networks

Optimum Design of Spectral Efficient Green Wireless Communications

This dissertation focuses on the optimum design of spectral efficient green wireless communications. Energy efficiency (EE), which is defined as the inverse of average energy required to successfully deliver one information bit from a source to its destination, and spectral efficiency (SE), which is defined as the average data rate per unit bandwidth, are two fundamental performance metrics of wireless communication systems. We study the optimum designs of a wide range of practical wireless communication systems that can either maximize EE, or SE, or achieve a balanced tradeoff between the two metrics. There are three objectives in this dissertation. First, an accurate frame error rate (FER) expression is developed for practical coded wireless communication systems operating in quasi-static Rayleigh fading channels. The new FER expression enables the accurate modeling of EE and SE for various wireless communication systems. Second, the optimum designs of automatic repeat request (ARQ) and hybrid ARQ (HARQ) systems are performed to by using the EE and SE as design metrics. Specifically, a new metric of normalized EE, which is defined as the EE normalized by the SE, is proposed to achieve a balanced tradeoff between the EE and SE. Third, a robust frequency-domain on-off accumulative transmission (OOAT) scheme has been developed to achieve collision-tolerant media access control (CT-MAC) in a wireless network. The proposed frequency domain OOAT scheme can improve the SE and EE by allowing multiple users to transmit simultaneously over the same frequency bands, and the signal collisions at the receiver can be resolved by using signal processing techniques in the physical layer

6G Wireless Systems: Vision, Requirements, Challenges, Insights, and Opportunities

Mobile communications have been undergoing a generational change every ten years or so. However, the time difference between the so-called "G's" is also decreasing. While fifth-generation (5G) systems are becoming a commercial reality, there is already significant interest in systems beyond 5G, which we refer to as the sixth-generation (6G) of wireless systems. In contrast to the already published papers on the topic, we take a top-down approach to 6G. We present a holistic discussion of 6G systems beginning with lifestyle and societal changes driving the need for next generation networks. This is followed by a discussion into the technical requirements needed to enable 6G applications, based on which we dissect key challenges, as well as possibilities for practically realizable system solutions across all layers of the Open Systems Interconnection stack. Since many of the 6G applications will need access to an order-of-magnitude more spectrum, utilization of frequencies between 100 GHz and 1 THz becomes of paramount importance. As such, the 6G eco-system will feature a diverse range of frequency bands, ranging from below 6 GHz up to 1 THz. We comprehensively characterize the limitations that must be overcome to realize working systems in these bands; and provide a unique perspective on the physical, as well as higher layer challenges relating to the design of next generation core networks, new modulation and coding methods, novel multiple access techniques, antenna arrays, wave propagation, radio-frequency transceiver design, as well as real-time signal processing. We rigorously discuss the fundamental changes required in the core networks of the future that serves as a major source of latency for time-sensitive applications. While evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of key 6G technologies, we differentiate what may be achievable over the next decade, relative to what is possible.Comment: Accepted for Publication into the Proceedings of the IEEE; 32 pages, 10 figures, 5 table

Factor Graph Based Detection Schemes for Mobile Terrestrial DVB Systems with Long OFDM Blocks

This PhD dissertation analyzes the performance of second generation digital video broadcasting (DVB) systems in mobile terrestrial environments and proposes an iterative detection algorithm based on factor graphs (FG) to reduce the distortion caused by the time variation of the channel, providing error-free communication in very severe mobile conditions. The research work focuses on mobile scenarios where the intercarrier interference (ICI) is very high: high vehicular speeds when long orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) blocks are used. As a starting point, we provide the theoretical background on the main topics behind the transmission and reception of terrestrial digital television signals in mobile environments, along with a general overview of the main signal processing techniques included in last generation terrestrial DVB systems. The proposed FG-based detector design is then assessed over a simpli ed bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM)-OFDM communication scheme for a wide variety of mobile environments. Extensive simulation results show the e ectiveness of the proposed belief propagation (BP) algorithm over the channels of interest in this research work. Moreover, assuming that low density parity-check (LDPC) codes are decoded by means of FG-based algorithms, a high-order FG is de ned in order to accomplish joint signal detection and decoding into the same FG framework, o ering a fully parallel structure very suitable when long OFDM blocks are employed. Finally, the proposed algorithms are analyzed over the physical layer of DVB-T2 speci cation. Two reception schemes are proposed which exploit the frequency and time-diversity inherent in time-varying channels with the aim of achieving a reasonable trade-o among performance, complexity and latency.Doktoretza tesi honek bigarren belaunaldiko telebista digitalaren eraginkortasuna aztertzen du eskenatoki mugikorrean, eta faktoreen grafoetan oinarritzen den hartzaile iteratibo bat proposatzen du denboran aldakorra den kanalak sortzen duen distortsioa leundu eta seinalea errorerik gabe hartzea ahalbidetzen duena. Proposatutako detektorea BICM-OFDM komunikazio eskema orokor baten gainean ebaluatu da lurreko broadcasting kanalaren baldintzak kontutan hartuz. Simulazio emaitzek algoritmo honen eraginkortasuna frogatzen dute Doppler frekuentzia handietan. Ikerketa lanaren bigarren zatian, faktoreen grafoetan oinarritutako detektorea eskema turbo zabalago baten baitan txertatu da LDPC dekodi katzaile batekin batera. Hartzaile diseinu honen abantaila nagusia da OFDM simbolo luzeetara ondo egokitzen dela. Azkenik, proposatutako algoritmoa DVB-T2 katearen baitan inplementatu da, bi hartzaile eskema proposatu direlarik seinaleak duen dibertsitate tenporal eta frekuentziala probesteko, beti ere eraginkortasunaren, konplexutasunaren eta latentziaren arteko konpromisoa mantenduz.Este trabajo de tesis analiza el rendimiento de la segunda generación de la televisión digital terreste en escenarios móviles y propone un algoritmo iterativo basado en grafos de factores para la detección de la señal y la reducción de la distorsión causada por la variación temporal del canal, permitiendo así recibir la señal libre de errores. El detector basado en grafos de factores propuesto es evaluado sobre un esquema de comunicaciones general BICM-OFDM en condiciones de transmisión propios de canales de difusión terrestres. Los resultados de simulación presentados muestran la e ciencia del algoritmo de detección propuesto en presencia de frecuencias Doppler muy altas. En una segunda parte del trabajo de investigación, el detector propuesto es incorporado a un esquema turbo junto con un decodi cador LDPC, dando lugar a un receptor iterativo que presenta características especialmente apropiadas para su implementación en sistemas OFDM con longitudes de símbolo elevadas. Por último, se analiza la implementación del algoritmo propuesto sobre la cadena de recepción de DVB-T2. Se presentan dos esquemas de recepción que explotan la diversidad temporal y frecuencial presentes en la señal afectada por canales variantes en el tiempo, consiguiendo un compromiso razonable entre rendimiento, complejidad y latencia

Optical Communication

Optical communication is very much useful in telecommunication systems, data processing and networking. It consists of a transmitter that encodes a message into an optical signal, a channel that carries the signal to its desired destination, and a receiver that reproduces the message from the received optical signal. It presents up to date results on communication systems, along with the explanations of their relevance, from leading researchers in this field. The chapters cover general concepts of optical communication, components, systems, networks, signal processing and MIMO systems. In recent years, optical components and other enhanced signal processing functions are also considered in depth for optical communications systems. The researcher has also concentrated on optical devices, networking, signal processing, and MIMO systems and other enhanced functions for optical communication. This book is targeted at research, development and design engineers from the teams in manufacturing industry, academia and telecommunication industries