Toward End-to-End, Full-Stack 6G Terahertz Networks

Recent evolutions in semiconductors have brought the terahertz band in the spotlight as an enabler for terabit-per-second communications in 6G networks. Most of the research so far, however, has focused on understanding the physics of terahertz devices, circuitry and propagation, and on studying physical layer solutions. However, integrating this technology in complex mobile networks requires a proper design of the full communication stack, to address link- and system-level challenges related to network setup, management, coordination, energy efficiency, and end-to-end connectivity. This paper provides an overview of the issues that need to be overcome to introduce the terahertz spectrum in mobile networks, from a MAC, network and transport layer perspective, with considerations on the performance of end-to-end data flows on terahertz connections.Comment: Published on IEEE Communications Magazine, THz Communications: A Catalyst for the Wireless Future, 7 pages, 6 figure

SymbioCity: Smart Cities for Smarter Networks

The "Smart City" (SC) concept revolves around the idea of embodying cutting-edge ICT solutions in the very fabric of future cities, in order to offer new and better services to citizens while lowering the city management costs, both in monetary, social, and environmental terms. In this framework, communication technologies are perceived as subservient to the SC services, providing the means to collect and process the data needed to make the services function. In this paper, we propose a new vision in which technology and SC services are designed to take advantage of each other in a symbiotic manner. According to this new paradigm, which we call "SymbioCity", SC services can indeed be exploited to improve the performance of the same communication systems that provide them with data. Suggestive examples of this symbiotic ecosystem are discussed in the paper. The dissertation is then substantiated in a proof-of-concept case study, where we show how the traffic monitoring service provided by the London Smart City initiative can be used to predict the density of users in a certain zone and optimize the cellular service in that area.Comment: 14 pages, submitted for publication to ETT Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologie

Multimedia delivery in the future internet

The term “Networked Media” implies that all kinds of media including text, image, 3D graphics, audio and video are produced, distributed, shared, managed and consumed on-line through various networks, like the Internet, Fiber, WiFi, WiMAX, GPRS, 3G and so on, in a convergent manner [1]. This white paper is the contribution of the Media Delivery Platform (MDP) cluster and aims to cover the Networked challenges of the Networked Media in the transition to the Future of the Internet. Internet has evolved and changed the way we work and live. End users of the Internet have been confronted with a bewildering range of media, services and applications and of technological innovations concerning media formats, wireless networks, terminal types and capabilities. And there is little evidence that the pace of this innovation is slowing. Today, over one billion of users access the Internet on regular basis, more than 100 million users have downloaded at least one (multi)media file and over 47 millions of them do so regularly, searching in more than 160 Exabytes1 of content. In the near future these numbers are expected to exponentially rise. It is expected that the Internet content will be increased by at least a factor of 6, rising to more than 990 Exabytes before 2012, fuelled mainly by the users themselves. Moreover, it is envisaged that in a near- to mid-term future, the Internet will provide the means to share and distribute (new) multimedia content and services with superior quality and striking flexibility, in a trusted and personalized way, improving citizens’ quality of life, working conditions, edutainment and safety. In this evolving environment, new transport protocols, new multimedia encoding schemes, cross-layer inthe network adaptation, machine-to-machine communication (including RFIDs), rich 3D content as well as community networks and the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are expected to generate new models of interaction and cooperation, and be able to support enhanced perceived quality-of-experience (PQoE) and innovative applications “on the move”, like virtual collaboration environments, personalised services/ media, virtual sport groups, on-line gaming, edutainment. In this context, the interaction with content combined with interactive/multimedia search capabilities across distributed repositories, opportunistic P2P networks and the dynamic adaptation to the characteristics of diverse mobile terminals are expected to contribute towards such a vision. Based on work that has taken place in a number of EC co-funded projects, in Framework Program 6 (FP6) and Framework Program 7 (FP7), a group of experts and technology visionaries have voluntarily contributed in this white paper aiming to describe the status, the state-of-the art, the challenges and the way ahead in the area of Content Aware media delivery platforms

Simultaneous data rate and transmission power adaptation in V2V communications: A deep reinforcement learning approach

In Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications, channel load is key to ensuring the appropriate operation of safety applications as well as driver-assistance systems. As the number of vehicles increases, so do their communication messages. Therefore, channel congestion may arise, negatively impacting channel performance. Through suitable adjustment of the data rate, this problem would be mitigated. However, this usually involves using different modulation schemes, which can jeopardize the robustness of the solution due to unfavorable channel conditions. To date, little effort has been made to adjust the data rate, alone or together with other parameters, and its effects on the aforementioned sensitive safety applications remain to be investigated. In this paper, we employ an analytical model which balances the data rate and transmission power in a non-cooperative scheme. In particular, we train a Deep Neural Network (DNN) to precisely optimize both parameters for each vehicle without using additional information from neighbors, and without requiring any additional infrastructure to be deployed on the road. The results obtained reveal that our approach, called NNDP, not only alleviates congestion, leaving a certain fraction of the channel available for emergency-related messages, but also provides enough transmission power to fulfill the application layer requirements at a given coverage distance. Finally, NNDP is thoroughly tested and evaluated in three realistic scenarios and under different channel conditions, demonstrating its robustness and excellent performance in comparison with other solutions found in the scientific literature.This work was supported in part by the AEI/FEDER/UE [Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), and Unión Europea (UE)] under Grant PID2020-116329GB-C22 [ARISE2: Future IoT Networks and Nano-networks (FINe)] and Grant PID2020-112675RB-C41 (ONOFRE-3), in part by the Fundación Séneca, Región de Murcia, under Grant 20889/PI/18 (ATENTO), and in part by the LIFE project (Fondo SUPERA COVID-19 through the Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas CSIC, Universidades Españolas, and Banco Santander). The work of Juan Aznar-Poveda was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (MECD) through the Formación de Personal Investigador (FPI) Predoctoral Scholarship under Grant BES-2017-08106