Dynamic Time-domain Duplexing for Self-backhauled Millimeter Wave Cellular Networks

Millimeter wave (mmW) bands between 30 and 300 GHz have attracted considerable attention for next-generation cellular networks due to vast quantities of available spectrum and the possibility of very high-dimensional antenna ar-rays. However, a key issue in these systems is range: mmW signals are extremely vulnerable to shadowing and poor high-frequency propagation. Multi-hop relaying is therefore a natural technology for such systems to improve cell range and cell edge rates without the addition of wired access points. This paper studies the problem of scheduling for a simple infrastructure cellular relay system where communication between wired base stations and User Equipment follow a hierarchical tree structure through fixed relay nodes. Such a systems builds naturally on existing cellular mmW backhaul by adding mmW in the access links. A key feature of the proposed system is that TDD duplexing selections can be made on a link-by-link basis due to directional isolation from other links. We devise an efficient, greedy algorithm for centralized scheduling that maximizes network utility by jointly optimizing the duplexing schedule and resources allocation for dense, relay-enhanced OFDMA/TDD mmW networks. The proposed algorithm can dynamically adapt to loading, channel conditions and traffic demands. Significant throughput gains and improved resource utilization offered by our algorithm over the static, globally-synchronized TDD patterns are demonstrated through simulations based on empirically-derived channel models at 28 GHz.Comment: IEEE Workshop on Next Generation Backhaul/Fronthaul Networks - BackNets 201

Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments

The demand for mobile connectivity is continuously increasing, and by 2020 Mobile and Wireless Communications will serve not only very dense populations of mobile phones and nomadic computers, but also the expected multiplicity of devices and sensors located in machines, vehicles, health systems and city infrastructures. Future Mobile Networks are then faced with many new scenarios and use cases, which will load the networks with different data traffic patterns, in new or shared spectrum bands, creating new specific requirements. This book addresses both the techniques to model, analyse and optimise the radio links and transmission systems in such scenarios, together with the most advanced radio access, resource management and mobile networking technologies. This text summarises the work performed by more than 500 researchers from more than 120 institutions in Europe, America and Asia, from both academia and industries, within the framework of the COST IC1004 Action on "Cooperative Radio Communications for Green and Smart Environments". The book will have appeal to graduates and researchers in the Radio Communications area, and also to engineers working in the Wireless industry. Topics discussed in this book include: • Radio waves propagation phenomena in diverse urban, indoor, vehicular and body environments• Measurements, characterization, and modelling of radio channels beyond 4G networks• Key issues in Vehicle (V2X) communication• Wireless Body Area Networks, including specific Radio Channel Models for WBANs• Energy efficiency and resource management enhancements in Radio Access Networks• Definitions and models for the virtualised and cloud RAN architectures• Advances on feasible indoor localization and tracking techniques• Recent findings and innovations in antenna systems for communications• Physical Layer Network Coding for next generation wireless systems• Methods and techniques for MIMO Over the Air (OTA) testin

Cooperative Radio Communications for Green Smart Environments

The demand for mobile connectivity is continuously increasing, and by 2020 Mobile and Wireless Communications will serve not only very dense populations of mobile phones and nomadic computers, but also the expected multiplicity of devices and sensors located in machines, vehicles, health systems and city infrastructures. Future Mobile Networks are then faced with many new scenarios and use cases, which will load the networks with different data traffic patterns, in new or shared spectrum bands, creating new specific requirements. This book addresses both the techniques to model, analyse and optimise the radio links and transmission systems in such scenarios, together with the most advanced radio access, resource management and mobile networking technologies. This text summarises the work performed by more than 500 researchers from more than 120 institutions in Europe, America and Asia, from both academia and industries, within the framework of the COST IC1004 Action on "Cooperative Radio Communications for Green and Smart Environments". The book will have appeal to graduates and researchers in the Radio Communications area, and also to engineers working in the Wireless industry. Topics discussed in this book include: • Radio waves propagation phenomena in diverse urban, indoor, vehicular and body environments• Measurements, characterization, and modelling of radio channels beyond 4G networks• Key issues in Vehicle (V2X) communication• Wireless Body Area Networks, including specific Radio Channel Models for WBANs• Energy efficiency and resource management enhancements in Radio Access Networks• Definitions and models for the virtualised and cloud RAN architectures• Advances on feasible indoor localization and tracking techniques• Recent findings and innovations in antenna systems for communications• Physical Layer Network Coding for next generation wireless systems• Methods and techniques for MIMO Over the Air (OTA) testin

Uplink Resource Allocation in Relay Enhanced LTE-Advanced Cellular Networks

In parallel to HSPA evolution, 3GPP has adopted the Long Term Evolution track to fulfill the performance targets of 4G cellular networks. Multi-hop networks consisting of fixed decode and forward relays nodes are proposed to relax the capacity and coverage limitations encountered by traditional macro base station deployments. The relays are designed to operate on the in-band spectrum and support self-backhauling of user data. This thesis work provides an insight into the impact of uplink resource allocation in delivering improved user experience in relay enhanced cellular networks. Radio resource allocation and power control play a crucial role in the performance of wireless communication systems. System level simulations reveal that reuse 1 based relay enhanced cells operate in an interference limited scenario. Therefore, a resource allocation scheme based on user grouping is investigated to coordinate and mitigate the negative effect of interference. It is shown that the proposed methodology is spectrally efficient and delivers improved system performance. In addition to improving system performance, relaying is seen to be beneficial in significantly reducing battery consumption in devices. This is highly appealing since the next generation cellular networks are targeted towards higher bit rates and extended periods of mobile data usage. This work provides specific insights into the performance limiting criteria of the envisaged multi-hop system and, furthermore, is expected to contribute towards 3GPP's standardization of the relaying study item

Timing and Carrier Synchronization in Wireless Communication Systems: A Survey and Classification of Research in the Last 5 Years

Timing and carrier synchronization is a fundamental requirement for any wireless communication system to work properly. Timing synchronization is the process by which a receiver node determines the correct instants of time at which to sample the incoming signal. Carrier synchronization is the process by which a receiver adapts the frequency and phase of its local carrier oscillator with those of the received signal. In this paper, we survey the literature over the last 5 years (2010–2014) and present a comprehensive literature review and classification of the recent research progress in achieving timing and carrier synchronization in single-input single-output (SISO), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), cooperative relaying, and multiuser/multicell interference networks. Considering both single-carrier and multi-carrier communication systems, we survey and categorize the timing and carrier synchronization techniques proposed for the different communication systems focusing on the system model assumptions for synchronization, the synchronization challenges, and the state-of-the-art synchronization solutions and their limitations. Finally, we envision some future research directions

Esquemas de cooperação entre estações base para o LTE no sentido descendente

The explosive growth in wireless traffic and in the number of connected devices as smart phones or computers, are causing a dramatic increase in the levels of interference, which significantly degrades the capacity gains promised by the point-to-point multi input, multi output (MIMO) based techniques. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly clear that major new improvements in spectral efficiency of wireless networks will have to entail addressing intercell interference. So, there is a need for a new cellular architecture that can take these factors under consideration. It is in this context that LTE-Advanced arises. One of the most promising LTE-Advanced technology is Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP), which allows base stations to cooperate among them, in order to mitigate or eliminate the intercell interference and, by doing so, increase the system’s capacity. This thesis intends to study this concept, implementing some schemes that fall under the CoMP concept. In this thesis we consider a distributed precoded multicell approach, where the precoders are computed locally at each BS to mitigate the intercell interference. Two precoder are considered: distributed zero forcing (DZF) and distributed virtual signal-to-interference noise ratio (DVSINR) recently proposed. Then the system is further optimized by computing a power allocation algorithm over the subcarriers that minimizes the average bit error rate (BER). The considered algorithms are also evaluated under imperfect channel state information. A quantized version of the CSI associated to the different links between the BS and the UT is feedback from the UT to the BS. This information is then employed by the different BSs to perform the precoding design. A new DVSINR precoder explicitly designed under imperfect CSI is proposed. The proposed schemes were implemented considering the LTE specifications, and the results show that the considered precoders are efficiently to remove the interference even under imperfect CSI.O crescimento exponencial no tráfego de comunicações sem-fios e no número de dispositivos utilizados (smart phones, computadores portáteis, etc.) está a causar um aumento significativo nos níveis de interferência, que prejudicam significativamente os ganhos de capacidade assegurados pelas tecnologias baseadas em ligações ponto-a-ponto MIMO. Deste modo, torna-se cada vez mais necessário que os grandes aperfeiçoamentos na eficiência espectral de sistemas de comunicações sem-fios tenham em consideração a interferência entre células. De forma a tomar em consideração estes aspectos, uma nova arquitectura celular terá de ser desenvolvida. É assim, neste contexto, que surge o LTE-Advanced. Uma das tecnologias mais promissoras do LTE-Advanced é a Coordenação Multi-Ponto (CoMP), que permite que as estações base cooperem de modo a mitigar a interferência entre células e, deste modo, aumentar a capacidade do sistema. Esta dissertação pretende estudar este conceito, implementando para isso algumas técnicas que se enquadram no conceito do CoMP. Nesta dissertação iremos considerar a implementação de um sistema de pré-codificação em múltiplas células, em que os pré-codificadores são calculados em cada BS, de modo a mitigar a interferência entre células. São considerados dois pré-codificadores: Distributed Zero Forcing (DZF) e Distributed Virtual Signal-to-Interferance Noise Ratio (DVSINR), recentemente proposto. De seguida o sistema é optimizado com a introdução de algoritmos de alocação de potência entre as sub-portadoras com o objectivo de minimizar a taxa média de erros (BER). Os algoritmos considerados são também avaliados em situações em que a informação do estado do canal é imperfeita. Uma versão quantizada da CSI associada a cada uma das diferentes ligações entre as BS e os UT é assim enviada do UT para a BS. Esta informação é então utilizada para calcular os diferentes pré-codificadores em cada BS. Uma nova versão do pré-codificador DVSINR é proposta de modo a lidar com CSI imperfeito. Os esquemas propostos foram implementados considerandos especificações do LTE, e os resultados obtidos demonstram que os pré-codificadores removem de uma forma eficiente a interferência, mesmo em situações em que a CSI é imperfeita

Estratégias de design de camada intermédia e cooperativa para redes sem fios energeticamente eficientes

Doutoramento conjunto MAP-i em InformáticaThe promise of a truly mobile experience is to have the freedom to roam around anywhere and not be bound to a single location. However, the energy required to keep mobile devices connected to the network over extended periods of time quickly dissipates. In fact, energy is a critical resource in the design of wireless networks since wireless devices are usually powered by batteries. Furthermore, multi-standard mobile devices are allowing users to enjoy higher data rates with ubiquitous connectivity. However, the bene ts gained from multiple interfaces come at a cost in terms of energy consumption having profound e ect on the mobile battery lifetime and standby time. This concern is rea rmed by the fact that battery lifetime is one of the top reasons why consumers are deterred from using advanced multimedia services on their mobile on a frequent basis. In order to secure market penetration for next generation services energy e ciency needs to be placed at the forefront of system design. However, despite recent e orts, energy compliant features in legacy technologies are still in its infancy, and new disruptive architectures coupled with interdisciplinary design approaches are required in order to not only promote the energy gain within a single protocol layer, but to enhance the energy gain from a holistic perspective. A promising approach is cooperative smart systems, that in addition to exploiting context information, are entities that are able to form a coalition and cooperate in order to achieve a common goal. Migrating from this baseline, this thesis investigates how these technology paradigm can be applied towards reducing the energy consumption in mobile networks. In addition, we introduce an additional energy saving dimension by adopting an interlayer design so that protocol layers are designed to work in synergy with the host system, rather than independently, for harnessing energy. In this work, we exploit context information, cooperation and inter-layer design for developing new energy e cient and technology agnostic building blocks for mobile networks. These technology enablers include energy e cient node discovery and short-range cooperation for energy saving in mobile handsets, complemented by energy-aware smart scheduling for promoting energy saving on the network side. Analytical and simulations results were obtained, and veri ed in the lab on a real hardware testbed. Results have shown that up to 50% energy saving could be obtained.A promessa de uma experiência realmente móvel é de ter a liberdade de deambular por qualquer sítio e não estar preso a um único local. No entanto, a energia requerida para manter dispositivos móveis conectados à rede, num período extenso de tempo, o mesmo rapidamente se dissipa. Na realidade, a energia é um recurso crítico no design de redes sem fios, uma vez que esses dispositivos são alimentados por baterias. Para além disso, dispositivos móveis multi-standard permitem que os utilizadores desfrutem de elevadas taxas de dados com conectividade omnipresente. No entanto, as vantagens adquiridas pelas múltiplas interfaces, imputa uma despesa, sendo essa um consumo maior de energia, numa era onde os dispositivos móveis têm de ser energicamente complacentes. Esta preocupação é reafirmada pelo facto de que a vida da bateria é uma das principais razões que impede os utilizadores de usufruir e utilizar de serviços de multimédia mais avançados nos seus dispositivos, numa base frequente. De forma a assegurar a entrada no mercado para serviços da próxima geração, eficiência energética tem de ser colocada na vanguarda do design de sistemas. No entanto, apesar de esforços recentes, funcionalidades que cumpram os requisitos energéticos em tecnologias "legacy" ainda estão nos seus primórdios e novas abordagens disruptivas são requeridas, juntamente com abordagem de design interdisciplinar, de forma a aproveitar a poupança energética das diversas camadas protocolares. Uma bordagem promissora são os sistemas de cooperação inteligente, que exploram não são contexto da informação, mas também as entidades que são igualmente capazes de formar uma coligação e cooperam de forma a atingir um objectivo comum. Migrar a partir destas referências, esta tese investiga como é que este paradigma tecnológico pode ser aplicado para reduzir a potência e consumo de energia em redes móveis. Para além disso, introduzimos uma dimensão de poupança energética adicional, para adopção de design de camadas intermédias, de forma a que as camadas de protocolos sejam concebidas para trabalhar em sinergia com o sistema anfitrião, ao invés de independentemente, para aproveitamento de energia. Neste trabalho, nós exploramos o contexto da informação, cooperação e design de camadas intermédias para desenvolver blocos de construção energicamente eficientes e tecnologias agnósticas para redes móveis. Estes habilitadores (enablers) tecnológicos incluem um nó de descoberta de energia eficiente e cooperação de curto alcance para poupança energética em aparelhos móveis, complementado com agendamento inteligente, energicamente consciente, de forma a promover a poupança de energia do lado da rede. Analiticamente e simultaneamente, foram obtidos resultados e verificados em laboratório, num modelo de hardware protótipo. Resultados demonstram que pode ser obtido uma poupança energética acima dos 50%