Time-shifted Pilot-based Scheduling with Adaptive Optimization for Pilot Contamination Reduction in Massive MIMO, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2020, nr 4

Massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) is considered to be an emerging technique in wireless communication systems, as it offers the ability to boost channel capacity and spectral efficiency. However, a massive MIMO system requires huge base station (BS) antennas to handle users and suffers from inter-cell interference that leads to pilot contamination. To cope with this, time-shifted pilots are devised for avoiding interference between cells, by rearranging the order of transmitting pilots in different cells. In this paper, an adaptive-elephant-based spider monkey optimization (adaptive ESMO) mechanism is employed for time-shifted optimal pilot scheduling in a massive MIMO system. Here, user grouping is performed with the sparse fuzzy c-means (Sparse FCM) algorithm, grouping users based on such parameters as large-scale fading factor, SINR, and user distance. Here, the user grouping approach prevents inappropriate grouping of users, thus enabling effective grouping, even under the worst conditions in which the channel operates. Finally, optimal time-shifted scheduling of the pilot is performed using the proposed adaptive ESMO concept designed by incorporating adaptive tuning parameters. The efficiency of the adaptive ESMO approach is evaluated and reveals superior performance with the highest achievable uplink rate of 43.084 bps/Hz, the highest SINR of 132.9 dB, and maximum throughput of 2.633 Mbp

Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Communication Networks for the Maritime Internet of Things: Key Technologies, Opportunities, and Challenges

With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing number of maritime mobile terminals, as well as a growing demand for high-speed and ultra-reliable maritime communications to keep them connected. Traditionally, the maritime Internet of Things (IoT) is enabled by maritime satellites. However, satellites are seriously restricted by their high latency and relatively low data rate. As an alternative, shore & island-based base stations (BSs) can be built to extend the coverage of terrestrial networks using fourth-generation (4G), fifth-generation (5G), and beyond 5G services. Unmanned aerial vehicles can also be exploited to serve as aerial maritime BSs. Despite of all these approaches, there are still open issues for an efficient maritime communication network (MCN). For example, due to the complicated electromagnetic propagation environment, the limited geometrically available BS sites, and rigorous service demands from mission-critical applications, conventional communication and networking theories and methods should be tailored for maritime scenarios. Towards this end, we provide a survey on the demand for maritime communications, the state-of-the-art MCNs, and key technologies for enhancing transmission efficiency, extending network coverage, and provisioning maritime-specific services. Future challenges in developing an environment-aware, service-driven, and integrated satellite-air-ground MCN to be smart enough to utilize external auxiliary information, e.g., sea state and atmosphere conditions, are also discussed