A Distributed Approach for Networked Flying Platform Association with Small Cells in 5G+ Networks

The densification of small-cell base stations in a 5G architecture is a promising approach to enhance the coverage area and facilitate the ever increasing capacity demand of end users. However, the bottleneck is an intelligent management of a backhaul/fronthaul network for these small-cell base stations. This involves efficient association and placement of the backhaul hubs that connects these small-cells with the core network. Terrestrial hubs suffer from an inefficient non line of sight link limitations and unavailability of a proper infrastructure in an urban area. Seeing the popularity of flying platforms, we employ here an idea of using networked flying platform (NFP) such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones, unmanned balloons flying at different altitudes, as aerial backhaul hubs. The association problem of these NFP-hubs and small-cell base stations is formulated considering backhaul link and NFP related limitations such as maximum number of supported links and bandwidth. Then, this paper presents an efficient and distributed solution of the designed problem, which performs a greedy search in order to maximize the sum rate of the overall network. A favorable performance is observed via a numerical comparison of our proposed method with optimal exhaustive search algorithm in terms of sum rate and run-time speed.Comment: Submitted to IEEE GLOBECOM 2017, 7 pages and 4 figure

Beyond 5G Fronthaul based on FSO Using Spread Spectrum Codes and Graphene Modulators.

High data rate coverage, security, and energy efficiency will play a key role in the continued performance scaling of next-generation mobile systems. Dense, small mobile cells based on a novel network architecture are part of the answer. Motivated by the recent mounting interest in free-space optical (FSO) technologies, this paper addresses a novel mobile fronthaul network architecture based on FSO, spread spectrum codes, and graphene modulators for the creation of dense small cells. The network uses an energy-efficient graphene modulator to send data bits to be coded with spread codes for achieving higher security before their transmission to remote units via high-speed FSO transmitters. Analytical results show the new fronthaul mobile network can accommodate up to 32 remote antennas under error-free transmissions with forward error correction. Furthermore, the modulator is optimized to provide maximum efficiency in terms of energy consumption per bit. The optimization procedure is carried out by optimizing both the amount of graphene used on the ring resonator and the modulator’s design. The optimized graphene modulator is used in the new fronthaul network and requires as low as 4.6 fJ/bit while enabling high-speed performance up to 42.6 GHz and remarkably using one-quarter of graphene only

Multi-NFP utilization in the fifth generation and beyond systems

Over the past few years, wireless communication needs have experienced continuous growth. There is now a great demand for more sophisticated infrastructure to cope with the fifth generation and beyond (5G+) systems. 5G+ systems promise to provide better real-time services, more efficient spectrum utilization, increased energy efficiency, and enhanced coverage. 5G+ systems are expected to adopt several adaptations in their network architecture, construction, and deployment. The integration of Network Flying Platforms (NFPs) with 5G+ capabilities will allow much higher connectivity, lower latency, and quicker transfer of high-precision data. This aggregation of 5G+ networks and NFPs is robust, paving the way to the introduction of many new capabilities and improvements in wireless applications. Resource allocation in wireless communication systems is one of the most critical issues when it comes to utilizing systems efficiently. In 5G+ cellular technology, the main research focus is on spectral efficiency, network throughput, and communication delays. Furthermore, this focus will continue to the next generation cellular systems. To support the communication of various internet of things (IoT) devices, especially unmanned aerial drones and balloons, next-generation cellular systems (5G+) will play a vital role. However, resource allocation will be a significant determinant in the effective use of such communications. Increasing network capacity while minimizing interference will be a significant research challenge. A different level of Quality of Service (QoS) for individual user levels will also need to be satisfied. In this thesis, NFPs as aerial hubs are considered in future 5G+ networks to provide fronthaul connectivity to small cells (SCs)/ user equipment (UE). This thesis has different objectives. The first objective is to find the near optimal association between the NFPs and SCs to maximize the total sum rate subject to QoS, bandwidth, and the supported number of links constraints. The second objective is to study the association problem of SCs with NFPs in order to minimize the system interference while taking into consideration the number of NFP links, the NFP’s maximum bandwidth, and the target data rate. The final objective is to deploy multiple UAVs for serving a group of UEs on the ground to maximize the total uploaded rate among all UEs by jointly optimizing the UAVs-UEs association, the UEs transmit power, and the UAVs trajector

Modelling, Dimensioning and Optimization of 5G Communication Networks, Resources and Services

This reprint aims to collect state-of-the-art research contributions that address challenges in the emerging 5G networks design, dimensioning and optimization. Designing, dimensioning and optimization of communication networks resources and services have been an inseparable part of telecom network development. The latter must convey a large volume of traffic, providing service to traffic streams with highly differentiated requirements in terms of bit-rate and service time, required quality of service and quality of experience parameters. Such a communication infrastructure presents many important challenges, such as the study of necessary multi-layer cooperation, new protocols, performance evaluation of different network parts, low layer network design, network management and security issues, and new technologies in general, which will be discussed in this book

White Paper for Research Beyond 5G

The documents considers both research in the scope of evolutions of the 5G systems (for the period around 2025) and some alternative/longer term views (with later outcomes, or leading to substantial different design choices). This document reflects on four main system areas: fundamental theory and technology, radio and spectrum management; system design; and alternative concepts. The result of this exercise can be broken in two different strands: one focused in the evolution of technologies that are already ongoing development for 5G systems, but that will remain research areas in the future (with “more challenging” requirements and specifications); the other, highlighting technologies that are not really considered for deployment today, or that will be essential for addressing problems that are currently non-existing, but will become apparent when 5G systems begin their widespread deployment