Current challenges and future trends in the field of communication architectures for microgrids

[EN] The concept of microgrid has emerged as a feasible answer to cope with the increasing number of distributed renewable energy sources which are being introduced into the electrical grid. The microgrid communication network should guarantee a complete and bidirectional connectivity among the microgrid resources, a high reliability and a feasible interoperability. This is in a contrast to the current electrical grid structure which is characterized by the lack of connectivity, being a centralized-unidirectional system. In this paper a review of the microgrids information and communication technologies (ICT) is shown. In addition, a guideline for the transition from the current communication systems to the future generation of microgrid communications is provided. This paper contains a systematic review of the most suitable communication network topologies, technologies and protocols for smart microgrids. It is concluded that a new generation of peer-to-peer communication systems is required towards a dynamic smart microgrid. Potential future research about communications of the next microgrid generation is also identified.This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under Grant ENE2015-64087-C2-2. This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under grant BES-2013-064539.Marzal-Romeu, S.; Salas-Puente, RA.; González Medina, R.; Garcerá, G.; Figueres Amorós, E. (2018). Current challenges and future trends in the field of communication architectures for microgrids. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 82(2):3610-3622. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.10.101S3610362282

On the optimal operation of wireless networks

With the ever increasing mobile traffic in wireless networks, radio frequency spectrum is becoming limited and overcrowded. To address the radio frequency spectrum scarcity problem, researchers proposed advanced radio technology-Cognitive Radio to make use of the uncommonly used and under-utilized licensed bands to improve overall spectrum efficiency. Mobile service providers also deploy small base stations on the streets, into shopping center and users\u27 households in order to improve spectrum efficiency per area. In this thesis, we study cooperation schemes in cognitive radio networks as well as heterogeneous networks to reuse the existing radio frequency spectrum intelligently and improve network throughput and spectrum efficiency, reduce network power consumption and provide network failure protection capability. In the first work of the thesis, we study a multicast routing problem in Cognitive Ratio Networks (CRNs). In this work, all Secondary Users (SUs) are assumed not self interested and they are willing to provide relay service for source SUs. We propose a new network modeling method, where we model CRNs using a Multi-rate Multilayer Hyper-Graph (MMHG). Given a multicast session of the MMHG, our goal is to find the multicast routing trees that minimize the worst case end-to-end delay, maximize the multicast rate and minimize the number of transmission links used in the multicast tree. We apply two metaheuristic algorithms (Multi-Objective Ant Colony System optimization algorithm (MOACS) and Archived Multi-Objective Simulated Annealing Optimization Algorithm (AMOSA)) in solving the problem. We also study the scheduling problem of multicast routing trees obtained from the MMHG model. In the second work of the thesis, we study the cell outage compensation function of the self-healing mechanism using network cooperation scheme. In a heterogeneous network environment with densely deployed Femto Base Stations (FBSs), we propose a network cooperation scheme for FBSs using Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) transmission and reception with joint processing technique. Different clustering methods are studied to improve the performance of the network cooperation scheme. In the final work of the thesis, we study the user cooperative multi-path routing solution for wireless Users Equipment (UEs)\u27 streaming application using auction theory. We assume that UEs use multi-path transport layer service, and establish two paths for streaming events, one path goes through its cellular link, another path is established using a Wi-Fi connection with a neighbor UE. We study user coordinated multi-path routing solution with two different energy cost functions (LCF and EAC) and design user cooperative real-time optimization and failure protection operations for the streaming application. To stimulate UEs to participate into the user cooperation operation, we design a credit system enabled with auction mechanism. Simulation results in this thesis show that optimal cooperation operations among network devices to reuse the existing spectrum wisely are able to improve network performance considerably. Our proposed network modeling approach in CRN helps reduce the complicated multicast routing problem to a simple graph problem, and the proposed algorithms can find most of the optimal multicast routing trees in a short amount of time. In the second and third works, our proposed network cooperation and user cooperation approaches are shown to provide better UEs\u27 throughput compared to non-cooperation schemes. The network cooperation approach using CoMP provides failure compensation capability by preventing the system sum rate loss from having the same speed of radio resource loss, and this is done without using additional radio resources and will not have a significant adverse effect on the performance of other UEs. The user cooperation approach shows great advantage in improving service rate, improving streaming event success rate and reducing energy consumption compared to non-cooperation solution

Improving QoE With Genetic Algorithm-Based Path Selection for MPTCP

Multipath TCP (MPTCP) is a protocol that enables the use of more than one subflow under the same TCP connection, which provides increased throughput due to the aggregated bandwidth. Therefore, the use of MPTCP can be very beneficial to video streaming applications since bandwidth is the most crucial parameter that improves the performance of such applications. However, the characteristics of the subflow paths might have a significant impact on application performance. In this study, we propose a path selection approach for MPTCP subflows in order to maximize the Quality of Experience (QoE) for adaptive HTTP streaming systems, which is currently one of the most popular video streaming application techniques. The paths are selected on the network layer by taking the bandwidth and delay differences into account. The disjointness of the paths is also considered in the proposed path selection approach. A genetic algorithm-based approach is utilized for the selection of the paths. Furthermore, we indicate how the characteristics of the paths affect QoE. The experimental results indicate that considering bandwidth and delay difference parameters jointly helps increase all QoE metrics, compared to the approaches that select paths considering either bandwidth or delay difference

QIBMRMN: Design of a Q-Learning based Iterative sleep-scheduling & hybrid Bioinspired Multipath Routing model for Multimedia Networks

Multimedia networks utilize low-power scalar nodes to modify wakeup cycles of high-performance multimedia nodes, which assists in optimizing the power-to-performance ratios. A wide variety of machine learning models are proposed by researchers to perform this task, and most of them are either highly complex, or showcase low-levels of efficiency when applied to large-scale networks. To overcome these issues, this text proposes design of a Q-learning based iterative sleep-scheduling and fuses these schedules with an efficient hybrid bioinspired multipath routing model for large-scale multimedia network sets. The proposed model initially uses an iterative Q-Learning technique that analyzes energy consumption patterns of nodes, and incrementally modifies their sleep schedules. These sleep schedules are used by scalar nodes to efficiently wakeup multimedia nodes during adhoc communication requests. These communication requests are processed by a combination of Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) & Genetic Algorithm (GA) models, which assist in the identification of optimal paths. These paths are estimated via combined analysis of temporal throughput & packet delivery performance, with node-to-node distance & residual energy metrics. The GWO Model uses instantaneous node & network parameters, while the GA Model analyzes temporal metrics in order to identify optimal routing paths. Both these path sets are fused together via the Q-Learning mechanism, which assists in Iterative Adhoc Path Correction (IAPC), thereby improving the energy efficiency, while reducing communication delay via multipath analysis. Due to a fusion of these models, the proposed Q-Learning based Iterative sleep-scheduling & hybrid Bioinspired Multipath Routing model for Multimedia Networks (QIBMRMN) is able to reduce communication delay by 2.6%, reduce energy consumed during these communications by 14.0%, while improving throughput by 19.6% & packet delivery performance by 8.3% when compared with standard multimedia routing techniques

QIBMRMN: Design of a Q-Learning based Iterative sleep-scheduling & hybrid Bioinspired Multipath Routing model for Multimedia Networks

Multimedia networks utilize low-power scalar nodes to modify wakeup cycles of high-performance multimedia nodes, which assists in optimizing the power-to-performance ratios. A wide variety of machine learning models are proposed by researchers to perform this task, and most of them are either highly complex, or showcase low-levels of efficiency when applied to large-scale networks. To overcome these issues, this text proposes design of a Q-learning based iterative sleep-scheduling and fuses these schedules with an efficient hybrid bioinspired multipath routing model for large-scale multimedia network sets. The proposed model initially uses an iterative Q-Learning technique that analyzes energy consumption patterns of nodes, and incrementally modifies their sleep schedules. These sleep schedules are used by scalar nodes to efficiently wakeup multimedia nodes during adhoc communication requests. These communication requests are processed by a combination of Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) & Genetic Algorithm (GA) models, which assist in the identification of optimal paths. These paths are estimated via combined analysis of temporal throughput & packet delivery performance, with node-to-node distance & residual energy metrics. The GWO Model uses instantaneous node & network parameters, while the GA Model analyzes temporal metrics in order to identify optimal routing paths. Both these path sets are fused together via the Q-Learning mechanism, which assists in Iterative Adhoc Path Correction (IAPC), thereby improving the energy efficiency, while reducing communication delay via multipath analysis. Due to a fusion of these models, the proposed Q-Learning based Iterative sleep-scheduling & hybrid Bioinspired Multipath Routing model for Multimedia Networks (QIBMRMN) is able to reduce communication delay by 2.6%, reduce energy consumed during these communications by 14.0%, while improving throughput by 19.6% & packet delivery performance by 8.3% when compared with standard multimedia routing techniques

Exploiting the power of multiplicity: a holistic survey of network-layer multipath

The Internet is inherently a multipath network: For an underlying network with only a single path, connecting various nodes would have been debilitatingly fragile. Unfortunately, traditional Internet technologies have been designed around the restrictive assumption of a single working path between a source and a destination. The lack of native multipath support constrains network performance even as the underlying network is richly connected and has redundant multiple paths. Computer networks can exploit the power of multiplicity, through which a diverse collection of paths is resource pooled as a single resource, to unlock the inherent redundancy of the Internet. This opens up a new vista of opportunities, promising increased throughput (through concurrent usage of multiple paths) and increased reliability and fault tolerance (through the use of multiple paths in backup/redundant arrangements). There are many emerging trends in networking that signify that the Internet's future will be multipath, including the use of multipath technology in data center computing; the ready availability of multiple heterogeneous radio interfaces in wireless (such as Wi-Fi and cellular) in wireless devices; ubiquity of mobile devices that are multihomed with heterogeneous access networks; and the development and standardization of multipath transport protocols such as multipath TCP. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive survey of the literature on network-layer multipath solutions. We will present a detailed investigation of two important design issues, namely, the control plane problem of how to compute and select the routes and the data plane problem of how to split the flow on the computed paths. The main contribution of this paper is a systematic articulation of the main design issues in network-layer multipath routing along with a broad-ranging survey of the vast literature on network-layer multipathing. We also highlight open issues and identify directions for future work

Network reputation-based quality optimization of video delivery in heterogeneous wireless environments

The mass-market adoption of high-end mobile devices and increasing amount of video traffic has led the mobile operators to adopt various solutions to help them cope with the explosion of mobile broadband data traffic, while ensuring high Quality of Service (QoS) levels to their services. Deploying small-cell base stations within the existing macro-cellular networks and offloading traffic from the large macro-cells to the small cells is seen as a promising solution to increase capacity and improve network performance at low cost. Parallel use of diverse technologies is also employed. The result is a heterogeneous network environment (HetNets), part of the next generation network deployments. In this context, this thesis makes a step forward towards the “Always Best Experience” paradigm, which considers mobile users seamlessly roaming in the HetNets environment. Supporting ubiquitous connectivity and enabling very good quality of rich mobile services anywhere and anytime is highly challenging, mostly due to the heterogeneity of the selection criteria, such as: application requirements (e.g., voice, video, data, etc.); different device types and with various capabilities (e.g., smartphones, netbooks, laptops, etc.); multiple overlapping networks using diverse technologies (e.g., Wireless Local Area Networks (IEEE 802.11), Cellular Networks Long Term Evolution (LTE), etc.) and different user preferences. In fact, the mobile users are facing a complex decision when they need to dynamically select the best value network to connect to in order to get the “Always Best Experience”. This thesis presents three major contributions to solve the problem described above: 1) The Location-based Network Prediction mechanism in heterogeneous wireless networks (LNP) provides a shortlist of best available networks to the mobile user based on his location, history record and routing plan; 2) Reputation-oriented Access Network Selection mechanism (RANS) selects the best reputation network from the available networks for the mobile user based on the best trade-off between QoS, energy consumptions and monetary cost. The network reputation is defined based on previous user-network interaction, and consequent user experience with the network. 3) Network Reputation-based Quality Optimization of Video Delivery in heterogeneous networks (NRQOVD) makes use of a reputation mechanism to enhance the video content quality via multipath delivery or delivery adaptation