Challenges on the way of implementing TCP over 5G networks

5G cellular communication, especially with its hugely available bandwidth provided by millimeter-wave, is a promising technology to fulfill the coming high demand for vast data rates. These networks can support new use cases such as Vehicle to Vehicle and augmented reality due to its novel features such as network slicing along with the mmWave multi-gigabit-per-second data rate. Nevertheless, 5G cellular networks suffer from some shortcomings, especially in high frequencies because of the intermittent nature of channels when the frequency rises. Non-line of sight state, is one of the significant issues that the new generation encounters. This drawback is because of the intense susceptibility of higher frequencies to blockage caused by obstacles and misalignment. This unique characteristic can impair the performance of the reliable transport layer widely deployed protocol, TCP, in attaining high throughput and low latency throughout a fair network. As a result, the protocol needs to adjust the congestion window size based on the current situation of the network. However, TCP is not able to adjust its congestion window efficiently, and it leads to throughput degradation of the protocol. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of reliable end-to-end communications in 5G networks. It provides the analysis of the effects of TCP in 5G mmWave networks, the discussion of TCP mechanisms and parameters involved in the performance over 5G networks, and a survey of current challenges, solutions, and proposals. Finally, a feasibility analysis proposal of machine learning-based approaches to improve reliable end-to-end communications in 5G networks is presented.This work was supported by the Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya under Grant 2017 SGR 376.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Cross-layer architecture for a satellite-Wi-Fi efficient handover

To achieve fully mobile communications, considering different environments and modern service requirements, a multiple-segment architecture is the most suitable to guarantee service continuity with acceptable performance. Handover (HO) procedures can be invoked either out of necessity (if the current network connection is going off) or to improve performance (if different bandwidth or quality of service is required). In this scenario, to provide uninterrupted communication services, efficient intersegment HO capability must be implemented. The architecture considered includes a satellite segment and a number of Wi-Fi hot spots. A mobile node (MN) can switch from a segment to other exploiting services of mobile Internet protocol (MIP). This architecture introduces great flexibility and ensures capillary coverage; it also strongly affects Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)-based application performance. To efficiently face HO consequences, particularly when the TCP runs as a transport protocol, an innovative protocol architecture based on cross-layer (CL) exchange of information is proposed. Analyses of TCP dynamics during HOs and the performance improvement introduced with the proposed CL architecture, evaluated through the network simulator Ns-2, are presented

Exploring the benefits of multipath TCP In wireless networks

The revolution of the information society has created a completely new situation in the telecommunications markets. As the average user data demands in today's society grow bigger, since users nowadays are demanding a faster, wider and more reliable communication service from the operators so they can watch more videos, listen to more music or access the Internet in general with a better quality, a lower latency and seamlessly to the network access they are using, the network operators face the challenge to fit this demands into their existing networks. This has forced the operators to think in terms of how optimal they are on providing their services if they want to fulfil the customer requirements in this new environment. At the same time we need to keep in mind that simultaneously to this new user's habits smartphones revolution has created, it has also made it possible to have accessible communication devices which have the necessary hardware and horsepower to keep different network interfaces up, and so it has become a common thing to reach the Internet via different kind of networks along the day. Even more it has enabled a rich communications environment where different connection possibilities are available to the user at the same time. In this context, the idea of multipath communication emerges. The idea of taking advantage of a dense wireless communication offer through the use of multipath (sending and receiving information through different network interfaces simultaneously) looks promising to overcome a situation where user's communications services demand grows and at the same time the mobile network load becomes stronger. The newfangled protocol Multipath TCP (MPTCP) is a technology which is enabling in practice this king of multipath communication, and it is the focus of this project to dig into possible benefits the protocol may bring to the table by defining a set of use cases, test-bed implementations and experiments with MPTCP which we present and analyse in this document.La revolución de la sociedad de la información ha creado una situación que es completamente nueva en los mercados de telecomunicaciones. A medida que el usuario medio aumenta su demanda de datos, ya que hoy en día los hábitos de estos pasan por conexiones más rápidas y fiables que les permitan reproducir contenido (video, música, páginas web) con mejor calidad, menor latencia y transparentemente a la red que estén utilizando, los operadores de red afrontan nuevos retos a la hora de encajar estas expectativas del usuario dentro de las posibilidades que ofrece la red. Esto está forzando a los operadores a buscar una manera más óptima de gestionar el tráfico de sus clientes para así poder satisfacer la demanda de unos servicios de mayor calidad que estos realizan. Al mismo tiempo hay que tener en mente que, de la misma manera que el impacto que esta esta revolución de los smartphones ha tenido en los hábitos de consumo del usuario ha creado nuevos y complejos problemas, también ha hecho posible que existan dispositivos económicamente accesibles para el público con el hardware y la capacidad de procesamiento necesarias para incorporar múltiples adaptadores de red, y esto a su vez ha llevado a al escenario actual en el que comúnmente coexisten en el mismo lugar diferentes posibilidades para conectarse a internet (típicamente Wi-Fi y conexión móvil, pero también podríamos nombrar tecnologías como el Bluetooth o la clásica conexión de Ethernet en ordenadores portátiles) Es en este contexto en el que surge la idea de la comunicación multi-trayecto. La idea de aprovechar un entorno con una densa pero heterogénea oferta de conexión a través del uso del multi-trayecto (enviar y recibir información a través de múltiples interfaces de red simultáneamente) aparece como una posibilidad prometedora para los operadores para mejorar la experiencia del usuario al mismo tiempo que se gestiona el tráfico en la red de una manera más eficiente. El protocolo experimental Multipath TCP es una extensión del TCP clásico que hace posible este uso simultáneo de múltiples interfaces para la comunicación, y es objetivo de este proyecto diseñar, implementar y testear el protocolo en diferentes casos de uso en los que el multi-trayecto ofrece, a priori, algunas ventajas. En las siguientes páginas explicaremos que casos de uso hemos elegido para probar el protocolo y por qué, cómo hemos diseñado e implementado los bancos de pruebas y que resultados hemos obtenido en nuestro experimentos sobre el rendimiento del protocolo, realizando al mismo tiempo un análisis crítico de los resultados de los resultados.Ingeniería de Telecomunicació

Remote Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Through the Internet and IEEE 802.11

This dissertation focuses on real-time control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) through TCP/IP/IEEE 802.11. Using the MAVLink protocol - an open-source protocol for micro air vehicles - a solution that allows the exchange, in real-time, of control messages between a UAV and a remote Control Station was implemented. In order to allow the UAV control by a remote user, the vehicle streams a real-time video feed captured by a video-camera on board. The main challenge of this dissertation is related about the designing and implementation of a fast handover solution that allows an uninterruptible communication

Contribution to reliable end-to-end communication over 5G networks using advanced techniques

5G cellular communication, especially with its hugely available bandwidth provided by millimeter-wave, is a promising technology to fulfill the coming high demand for vast data rates. These networks can support new use cases such as Vehicle to Vehicle and augmented reality due to its novel features such as network slicing along with the mmWave multi-gigabit-persecond data rate. Nevertheless, 5G cellular networks suffer from some shortcomings, especially in high frequencies because of the intermittent nature of channels when the frequency rises. Non-line of sight state is one of the significant issues that the new generation encounters. This drawback is because of the intense susceptibility of higher frequencies to blockage caused by obstacles and misalignment. This unique characteristic can impair the performance of the reliable transport layer widely deployed protocol, TCP, in attaining high throughput and low latency throughout a fair network. As a result, the protocol needs to adjust the congestion window size based on the current situation of the network. However, TCP cannot adjust its congestion window efficiently, which leads to throughput degradation of the protocol. This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of reliable end-to-end communications in 5G networks and analyzes TCP’s behavior in one of the 3GPP’s well-known s cenarios called urban deployment. Furtherm ore, two novel TCPs bas ed on artificial intelligence have been proposed to deal with this issue. The first protocol uses Fuzzy logic, a subset of artificial intelligence, and the second one is based on deep learning. The extensively conducted simulations showed that the newly proposed protocols could attain higher performance than common TCPs, such as BBR, HighSpeed, Cubic, and NewReno in terms of throughput, RTT, and sending rate adjustment in the urban scenario. The new protocols' superiority is achieved by employing smartness in the conges tions control mechanism of TCP, which is a powerful enabler in fos tering TCP’s functionality. To s um up, the 5G network is a promising telecommunication infrastructure that will revolute various aspects of communication. However, different parts of the Internet, such as its regulations and protocol stack, will face new challenges, which need to be solved in order to exploit 5G capacity, and without intelligent rules and protocols, the high bandwidth of 5G, especially 5G mmWave will be wasted. Two novel schemes to solve the issues have been proposed based on an Artificial Intelligence subset technique called fuzzy and a machine learning-based approach called Deep learning to enhance the performance of 5G mmWave by improving the functionality of the transport layer. The obtained results indicated that the new schemes could improve the functionality of TCP by giving intelligence to the protocol. As the protocol works more smartly, it can make sufficient decisions on different conditions.La comunicació cel·lular 5G, especialment amb l’amplada de banda molt disponible que proporciona l’ona mil·limètrica, és una tecnologia prometedora per satisfer l’elevada demanda de grans velocitats de dades. Aquestes xarxes poden admetre casos d’ús nous, com ara Vehicle to Vehicle i realitat augmentada, a causa de les seves novetats, com ara el tall de xarxa juntament amb la velocitat de dades mWave de multi-gigabit per segon. Tot i això, les xarxes cel·lulars 5G pateixen algunes deficiències, sobretot en freqüències altes a causa de la naturalesa intermitent dels canals quan augmenta la freqüència. L’estat de no visió és un dels problemes significatius que troba la nova generació. Aquest inconvenient es deu a la intensa susceptibilitat de freqüències més altes al bloqueig causat per obstacles i desalineació. Aquesta característica única pot perjudicar el rendiment del protocol TCP, àmpliament desplegat, de capa de transport fiable en aconseguir un alt rendiment i una latència baixa en tota una xarxa justa. Com a resultat, el protocol ha d’ajustar la mida de la finestra de congestió en funció de la situació actual de la xarxa. Tot i això, TCP no pot ajustar la seva finestra de congestió de manera eficient, cosa que provoca una degradació del rendiment del protocol. Aquesta tesi presenta una anàlisi completa de comunicacions extrem a extrem en xarxes 5G i analitza el comportament de TCP en un dels escenaris coneguts del 3GPP anomenat desplegament urbà. A més, s'han proposat dos TCP nous basats en intel·ligència artificial per tractar aquest tema. El primer protocol utilitza la lògica Fuzzy, un subconjunt d’intel·ligència artificial, i el segon es basa en l’aprenentatge profund. Les simulacions àmpliament realitzades van mostrar que els protocols proposats recentment podrien assolir un rendiment superior als TCP habituals, com ara BBR, HighSpeed, Cubic i NewReno, en termes de rendiment, RTT i ajust d’índex d’enviament en l’escenari urbà. La superioritat dels nous protocols s’aconsegueix utilitzant la intel·ligència en el mecanisme de control de congestions de TCP, que és un poderós facilitador per fomentar la funcionalitat de TCP. En resum, la xarxa 5G és una prometedora infraestructura de telecomunicacions que revolucionarà diversos aspectes de la comunicació. No obstant això, diferents parts d’Internet, com ara les seves regulacions i la seva pila de protocols, s’enfrontaran a nous reptes, que cal resoldre per explotar la capacitat 5G, i sens regles i protocols intel·ligents, l’amplada de banda elevada de 5G, especialment 5G mmWave, pot ser desaprofitat. S'han proposat dos nous es quemes per resoldre els problemes basats en una tècnica de subconjunt d'Intel·ligència Artificial anomenada “difusa” i un enfocament basat en l'aprenentatge automàtic anomenat “Aprenentatge profund” per millorar el rendiment de 5G mmWave, millorant la funcionalitat de la capa de transport. Els resultats obtinguts van indicar que els nous esquemes podrien millorar la funcionalitat de TCP donant intel·ligència al protocol. Com que el protocol funciona de manera més intel·ligent, pot prendre decisions suficients en diferents condicionsPostprint (published version

Fog-supported delay-constrained energy-saving live migration of VMs over multiPath TCP/IP 5G connections

The incoming era of the fifth-generation fog computing-supported radio access networks (shortly, 5G FOGRANs) aims at exploiting computing/networking resource virtualization, in order to augment the limited resources of wireless devices through the seamless live migration of virtual machines (VMs) toward nearby fog data centers. For this purpose, the bandwidths of the multiple wireless network interface cards of the wireless devices may be aggregated under the control of the emerging MultiPathTCP (MPTCP) protocol. However, due to the fading and mobility-induced phenomena, the energy consumptions of the current state-of-the-art VM migration techniques may still offset their expected benefits. Motivated by these considerations, in this paper, we analytically characterize and implement in software and numerically test the optimal minimum-energy settable-complexity bandwidth manager (SCBM) for the live migration of VMs over 5G FOGRAN MPTCP connections. The key features of the proposed SCBM are that: 1) its implementation complexity is settable on-line on the basis of the target energy consumption versus implementation complexity tradeoff; 2) it minimizes the network energy consumed by the wireless device for sustaining the migration process under hard constraints on the tolerated migration times and downtimes; and 3) by leveraging a suitably designed adaptive mechanism, it is capable to quickly react to (possibly, unpredicted) fading and/or mobility-induced abrupt changes of the wireless environment without requiring forecasting. The actual effectiveness of the proposed SCBM is supported by extensive energy versus delay performance comparisons that cover: 1) a number of heterogeneous 3G/4G/WiFi FOGRAN scenarios; 2) synthetic and real-world workloads; and, 3) MPTCP and wireless connections