Design of in-building wireless networks deployments using evolutionary algorithms

In this article, a novel approach to deal with the design of in-building wireless networks deployments is proposed. This approach known as MOQZEA (Multiobjective Quality Zone Based Evolutionary Algorithm) is a hybr id evolutionary algorithm adapted to use a novel fitness function, based on the definition of quality zones for the different objective functions considered. This approach is conceived to solve wireless network design problems without previous information of the required number of transmitters, considering simultaneously a high number of objective functions and optimizing multiple configuration parameters of the transmitters

A survey of machine learning techniques applied to self organizing cellular networks

In this paper, a survey of the literature of the past fifteen years involving Machine Learning (ML) algorithms applied to self organizing cellular networks is performed. In order for future networks to overcome the current limitations and address the issues of current cellular systems, it is clear that more intelligence needs to be deployed, so that a fully autonomous and flexible network can be enabled. This paper focuses on the learning perspective of Self Organizing Networks (SON) solutions and provides, not only an overview of the most common ML techniques encountered in cellular networks, but also manages to classify each paper in terms of its learning solution, while also giving some examples. The authors also classify each paper in terms of its self-organizing use-case and discuss how each proposed solution performed. In addition, a comparison between the most commonly found ML algorithms in terms of certain SON metrics is performed and general guidelines on when to choose each ML algorithm for each SON function are proposed. Lastly, this work also provides future research directions and new paradigms that the use of more robust and intelligent algorithms, together with data gathered by operators, can bring to the cellular networks domain and fully enable the concept of SON in the near future

Evaluation of the potential for energy saving in macrocell and femtocell networks using a heuristic introducing sleep modes in base stations

In mobile technologies two trends are competing. On the one hand, the mobile access network requires optimisation in energy consumption. On the other hand, data volumes and required bit rates are rapidly increasing. The latter trend requires the deployment of more dense mobile access networks as the higher bit rates are available at shorter distance from the base station. In order to improve the energy efficiency, the introduction of sleep modes is required. We derive a heuristic which allows establishing a baseline of active base station fractions in order to be able to evaluate mobile access network designs. We demonstrate that sleep modes can lead to significant improvements in energy efficiency and act as an enabler for femtocell deployments

Efficient radio resource management for future generation heterogeneous wireless networks

The heterogeneous deployment of small cells (e.g., femtocells) in the coverage area of the traditional macrocells is a cost-efficient solution to provide network capacity, indoor coverage and green communications towards sustainable environments in the future fifth generation (5G) wireless networks. However, the unplanned and ultra-dense deployment of femtocells with their uncoordinated operations will result in technical challenges such as severe interference, a significant increase in total energy consumption, unfairness in radio resource sharing and inadequate quality of service provisioning. Therefore, there is a need to develop efficient radio resource management algorithms that will address the above-mentioned technical challenges. The aim of this thesis is to develop and evaluate new efficient radio resource management algorithms that will be implemented in cognitive radio enabled femtocells to guarantee the economical sustainability of broadband wireless communications and users' quality of service in terms of throughput and fairness. Cognitive Radio (CR) technology with the Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) and stochastic process are the key technologies utilized in this research to increase the spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency at limited interference. This thesis essentially investigates three research issues relating to the efficient radio resource management: Firstly, a self-organizing radio resource management algorithm for radio resource allocation and interference management is proposed. The algorithm considers the effect of imperfect spectrum sensing in detecting the available transmission opportunities to maximize the throughput of femtocell users while keeping interference below pre-determined thresholds and ensuring fairness in radio resource sharing among users. Secondly, the effect of maximizing the energy efficiency and the spectrum efficiency individually on radio resource management is investigated. Then, an energy-efficient radio resource management algorithm and a spectrum-efficient radio resource management algorithm are proposed for green communication, to improve the probabilities of spectrum access and further increase the network capacity for sustainable environments. Also, a joint maximization of the energy efficiency and spectrum efficiency of the overall networks is considered since joint optimization of energy efficiency and spectrum efficiency is one of the goals of 5G wireless networks. Unfortunately, maximizing the energy efficiency results in low performance of the spectrum efficiency and vice versa. Therefore, there is an investigation on how to balance the trade-off that arises when maximizing both the energy efficiency and the spectrum efficiency simultaneously. Hence, a joint energy efficiency and spectrum efficiency trade-off algorithm is proposed for radio resource allocation in ultra-dense heterogeneous networks based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access. Lastly, a joint radio resource allocation with adaptive modulation and coding scheme is proposed to minimize the total transmit power across femtocells by considering the location and the service requirements of each user in the network. The performance of the proposed algorithms is evaluated by simulation and numerical analysis to demonstrate the impact of ultra-dense deployment of femtocells on the macrocell networks. The results show that the proposed algorithms offer improved performance in terms of throughput, fairness, power control, spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency. Also, the proposed algorithms display excellent performance in dynamic wireless environments

Recent advances in radio resource management for heterogeneous LTE/LTE-A networks

As heterogeneous networks (HetNets) emerge as one of the most promising developments toward realizing the target specifications of Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) networks, radio resource management (RRM) research for such networks has, in recent times, been intensively pursued. Clearly, recent research mainly concentrates on the aspect of interference mitigation. Other RRM aspects, such as radio resource utilization, fairness, complexity, and QoS, have not been given much attention. In this paper, we aim to provide an overview of the key challenges arising from HetNets and highlight their importance. Subsequently, we present a comprehensive survey of the RRM schemes that have been studied in recent years for LTE/LTE-A HetNets, with a particular focus on those for femtocells and relay nodes. Furthermore, we classify these RRM schemes according to their underlying approaches. In addition, these RRM schemes are qualitatively analyzed and compared to each other. We also identify a number of potential research directions for future RRM development. Finally, we discuss the lack of current RRM research and the importance of multi-objective RRM studies

Project Final Report – FREEDOM ICT-248891

This document is the final publishable summary report of the objective and work carried out within the European Project FREEDOM, ICT-248891.This document is the final publishable summary report of the objective and work carried out within the European Project FREEDOM, ICT-248891.Preprin

Efficient radio resource management for the fifth generation slice networks

It is predicted that the IMT-2020 (5G network) will meet increasing user demands and, hence, it is therefore, expected to be as flexible as possible. The relevant standardisation bodies and academia have accepted the critical role of network slicing in the implementation of the 5G network. The network slicing paradigm allows the physical infrastructure and resources of the mobile network to be “sliced” into logical networks, which are operated by different entities, and then engineered to address the specific requirements of different verticals, business models, and individual subscribers. Network slicing offers propitious solutions to the flexibility requirements of the 5G network. The attributes and characteristics of network slicing support the multi-tenancy paradigm, which is predicted to drastically reduce the operational expenditure (OPEX) and capital expenditure (CAPEX) of mobile network operators. Furthermore, network slices enable mobile virtual network operators to compete with one another using the same physical networks but customising their slices and network operation according to their market segment's characteristics and requirements. However, owing to scarce radio resources, the dynamic characteristics of the wireless links, and its capacity, implementing network slicing at the base stations and the access network xix becomes an uphill task. Moreover, an unplanned 5G slice network deployment results in technical challenges such as unfairness in radio resource allocation, poor quality of service provisioning, network profit maximisation challenges, and rises in energy consumption in a bid to meet QoS specifications. Therefore, there is a need to develop efficient radio resource management algorithms that address the above mentioned technical challenges. The core aim of this research is to develop and evaluate efficient radio resource management algorithms and schemes that will be implemented in 5G slice networks to guarantee the QoS of users in terms of throughput and latency while ensuring that 5G slice networks are energy efficient and economically profitable. This thesis mainly addresses key challenges relating to efficient radio resource management. First, a particle swarm-intelligent profit-aware resource allocation scheme for a 5G slice network is proposed to prioritise the profitability of the network while at the same time ensuring that the QoS requirements of slice users are not compromised. It is observed that the proposed new radio swarm-intelligent profit-aware resource allocation (NR-SiRARE) scheme outperforms the LTE-OFDMA swarm-intelligent profit-aware resource (LO-SiRARE) scheme. However, the network profit for the NR-SiRARE is greatly affected by significant degradation of the path loss associated with millimetre waves. Second, this thesis examines the resource allocation challenge in a multi-tenant multi-slice multi-tier heterogeneous network. To maximise the total utility of a multi-tenant multislice multi-tier heterogeneous network, a latency-aware dynamic resource allocation problem is formulated as an optimisation problem. Via the hierarchical decomposition method for heterogeneous networks, the formulated optimisation problem is transformed to reduce the computational complexities of the proposed solutions. Furthermore, a genetic algorithmbased latency-aware resource allocation scheme is proposed to solve the maximum utility problem by considering related constraints. It is observed that GI-LARE scheme outperforms the static slicing (SS) and an optimal resource allocation (ORA) schemes. Moreover, the GI-LARE appears to be near optimal when compared with an exact solution based on spatial branch and bound. Third, this thesis addresses a distributed resource allocation problem in a multi-slice multitier multi-domain network with different players. A three-level hierarchical business model comprising InPs, MVNOs, and service providers (SP) is examined. The radio resource allocation problem is formulated as a maximum utility optimisation problem. A multi-tier multi-domain slice user matching game and a distributed backtracking multi-player multidomain games schemes are proposed to solve the maximum utility optimisation problem. The distributed backtracking scheme is based on the Fisher Market and Auction theory principles. The proposed multi-tier multi-domain scheme outperforms the GI-LARE and the SS schemes. This is attributed to the availability of resources from other InPs and MVNOs; and the flexibility associated with a multi-domain network. Lastly, an energy-efficient resource allocation problem for 5G slice networks in a highly dense heterogeneous environment is investigated. A mathematical formulation of energy-efficient resource allocation in 5G slice networks is developed as a mixed-integer linear fractional optimisation problem (MILFP). The method adopts hierarchical decomposition techniques to reduce complexities. Furthermore, the slice user association, QoS for different slice use cases, an adapted water filling algorithm, and stochastic geometry tools are employed to xxi model the global energy efficiency (GEE) of the 5G slice network. Besides, neither stochastic geometry nor a three-level hierarchical business model schemes have been employed to model the global energy efficiency of the 5G slice network in the literature, making it the first time such method will be applied to 5G slice network. With rigorous numerical simulations based on Monte-Carlo numerical simulation technique, the performance of the proposed algorithms and schemes was evaluated to show their adaptability, efficiency and robustness for a 5G slice network

AI-based resource management in future mobile networks

Η υποστίριξη και ενίσχυση των δίκτυων 5ης γενιάς και πέρα από αλγόριθμους Τεχνητής Νοημοσύνης για την επίλυση προβλημάτων βελτιστοποίησης δικτύου, μελετάται πρόσφατα προκειμένου η νέα γενιά των δικτύων να ανταποκριθεί στις απαιτήσεις ποιότητας υπηρεσίας σχετικά με την κάλυψη, τη χωρητικότητα των χρηστών και το κόστος εγκατάστασης. Μία από τις βασικές ανάγκες είναι η βελτιστοποίηση στην διαδικασία της εγκατάστασης σταθμών βάσης δικτύου. Σε αυτή την εργασία προτείνεται μια μετα-ευριστική μέθοδος, με όνομα «Γενετικός Αλγόριθμός» (Genetic Algorithm) για την επίλυση προβλημάτων βελτιστοποίησης λαμβάνοντας υπόψη τους περιορισμούς ζήτησης. Ο κύριος στόχος είναι η παρουσίαση της εναλλακτικής αυτής λύσης, η οποία είναι η χρήση του Γενετικού Αλγόριθμου, για τη βελτιστοποίηση της διαδικασίας εγκατάστασης των σταθμών βάσης του δικτύου. Με την χρήση του αλγορίθμου για την εγκατάσταση σταθμών βάσης παρέχονται οι ίδιες υπηρεσίες με πριν και ελαχιστοποιείται την κατανάλωση ενέργειας της υποδομής του δικτύου, λαμβάνοντας υπόψιν ομοιογενή και ετερογενή σενάρια σταθμών βάσης. Οι προσομοιώσεις πραγματοποιήθηκαν σε γλώσσα προγραμματισμού Python και τα καλύτερα αποτελέσματα εγκατάστασης παρουσιάστηκαν και αποθηκεύτηκαν. Έγινε σύγκριση της εγκατάστασης αποκλειστικά μακρο-σταθμών βάσης με μικρότερου μεγέθους (σε κάλυψη) σταθμών βάσης πάνω από την υπάρχουσα. Με την χρήση των μικρότερων σταθμών βάσης, η εγκατάσταση του δικτύου θα επιτρέψει βελτιώσεις στην κάλυψη των χρηστών και θα μειώσει το κόστος, την κατανάλωση ενέργειας και τις παρεμβολές μεταξύ των κυψελών. Όλα τα σενάρια μελετήθηκαν σε 3 περιοχές με διαφορετική πυκνότητα χρηστών (A, B και C). Ως προς την ικανοποίηση των απαιτήσεων αναφορικά με την ποιότητα υπηρεσιών και των κινητών συσκευών, η ανάπτυξη μικρών σταθμών βάσης είναι επωφελής, συγκεκριμένα σε περιοχές hotspot.The 5G and beyond networks supported by Artificial Intelligence algorithms in solving network optimization problems are recently studied to meet the quality-of-service requirements regarding coverage, capacity, and cost. One of the essential necessities is the optimized deployment of network base stations. This work proposes the meta-heuristic algorithm Genetic Algorithm to solve optimization problems considering the demand constraints. The main goal is present the alternative solution, which is using the Genetic Algorithm to optimize BSs network deployment. This deployment provides the same services as existing deployments and minimizes the network infrastructure's energy consumption, including using homogenous and heterogenous scenarios of base stations. The simulations were performed in Python programming language, and the results as the best plans for each generation were presented and saved. A comparison of the macro base station deployment and small base station deployment was made on top of the existing one. By applying the small base stations, the network deployment will enable user coverage enhancements and reduce the deployment cost, energy consumption, and inter-cell interference. All the scenarios were assembled in user density area A, user density area B, and user density area C areas of interest. In meeting the requirements for QoS and UE, the small base station deployment is beneficial, namely in hotspot areas