Proximity as a Service via Cellular Network-Assisted Mobile Device-to-Device

PhD ThesisThe research progress of communication has brought a lot of novel technologies to meet the multi-dimensional demands such as pervasive connection, low delay and high bandwidth. Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is a way to no longer treat the User Equipment (UEs) as a terminal, but rather as a part of the network for service provisioning. This thesis decouples UEs into service providers (helpers) and service requesters. By collaboration among proximal devices, with the coordination of cellular networks, some local tasks can be achieved, such as coverage extension, computation o oading, mobile crowdsourcing and mobile crowdsensing. This thesis proposes a generic framework Proximity as a Service (PaaS) for increasing the coverage with demands of service continuity. As one of the use cases, the optimal helper selection algorithm of PaaS for increasing the service coverage with demands of service continuity is called ContAct based Proximity (CAP). Mainly, fruitful contact information (e.g., contact duration, frequency, and interval) is captured, and is used to handle ubiquitous proximal services through the optimal selection of helpers. The nature of PaaS is evaluated under the Helsinki city scenario, with movement model of Points Of Interest (POI) and with critical factors in uencing the service demands (e.g., success ratio, disruption duration and frequency). Simulation results show the advantage of CAP, in both success ratio and continuity of the service (outputs). Based on this perspective, metrics such as service success ratio and continuity as a service evaluation of the PaaS are evaluated using the statistical theory of the Design Of Experiments (DOE). DOE is used as there are many dimensions to the state space (access tolerance, selected helper number, helper access limit, and transmit range) that can in uence the results. A key contribution of this work is that it brings rigorous statistical experiment design methods into the research into mobile computing. Results further reveal the influence of four factors (inputs), e.g., service tolerance, number of helpers allocated, the number of concurrent devices supported by each helper and transmit range. Based on this perspective, metrics such as service success ratio and continuity are evaluated using DOE. The results show that transmit range is the most dominant factor. The number of selected helpers is the second most dominant factor. Since di erent factors have di erent regression levels, a uni ed 4 level full factorial experiment and a cubic multiple regression analysis have been carried out. All the interactions and the corresponding coe cients have been found. This work is the rst one to evaluate LTE-Direct and WiFi-Direct in an opportunistic proximity service. The contribution of the results for industry is to guide how many users need to cooperate to enable mobile computing and for academia. This reveals the facts that: 1, in some cases, the improvement of spectrum e ciency brought by D2D is not important; 2, nodal density and the resources used in D2D air-interfaces are important in the eld of mobile computing. This work built a methodology to study the D2D networks with a di erent perspective (PaaS)

Proximity as a Service for the Use Case of Access Enhancement via Cellular​ Network-Assisted Mobile​Device-to-Device

Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is a way to treat the User Equipments (UEs) not as terminals, but as a part of the network (helpers) for service provisioning. We propose a generic framework, namely Proximity as a Service (PaaS), formulate the helper selection problem, and design and prove a heuristic helper selection policy, ContAct based Proximity (CAP), which increases the service connectivity and continuity. Design Of Experiment (DOE) is a statistical methodology that rigorously designs and conducts an experiment, and maximizes the information obtained from that experiment. We apply DOE to explore the relationship (analytic expression) between four inputs (factors) and four metrics (responses). Since different factors have different regression levels, a unified four level full factorial experiment and cubic multiple regression analysis have been carried out. Multiple regression equations are provided to estimate the different contributions and the interactions between factors. Results show that transmission range and user density are dominant and monotonically increasing, but transmission range should be restricted because of interference and energy-efficiency. After obtaining the explicit close form expressions between factors and responses, optimal values of key factors are derived. A methodology (the e-constraint method) to solve the multiple-objective optimization problem has been provided and a Pareto-Optimal set of factors has been found through iteration. The fluctuation of the iterations is small and a specific solution can be chosen based on the particular scenarios (city center or countryside with different user density). The methodology of optimization informs the design rules of the operator, helping to find the optimal networking solution

On Mobile Bluetooth Tags

This paper presents a new approach for hyper-local data sharing and delivery on the base of discoverable Bluetooth nodes. Our approach allows customers to associate user-defined data with network nodes and use a special mobile application (context-aware browser) for presenting this information to mobile users in proximity. Alternatively, mobile services can request and share local data in M2M applications rely on network proximity. Bluetooth nodes in cars are among the best candidates for the role of the bearing nodes.Comment: submitted to FRUCT-17 conference (http://fruct.org

Building an alternative social currency: Dematerialising and rematerialising digital money across media

This paper reports on the user experience and design of physical and digital forms of a mixed-media local currency. We reconceive digitally mediated transactions as social interactions and report on the development of conceptual designs informed by user research and interactive workshops. Our findings show that use is strongly tied to conceptions of locality and community, markers of identity, information exchange and the digital and physical forms as tools for shaping interactions. The form of the currency can make the invisible visible, exposing our identities and values, business models, and the details of the transactions themselves. Our analysis stresses the need to provide opportunities for extending social interaction, making more local connections and deriving the best value from those connections, without insulating individuals from each other, or from the wider geographical context. Themes that emerged from the user research were visualized as conceptual designs for digitally augmented media, allowing us to explore the monetary transaction at three levels: the material, as interaction between two parties, and the context of the transaction.The RCUK Digital Economy theme (EP/K012304/1)

CAP: A ContAct based Proximity Service via Opportunistic Device-to-Device Relay

The research progress of 5G has brought a number of novel technologies to meet the multi-dimensional demands. Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is a way to no longer treat the User Equipments (UEs) as terminal, but rather as a part of network (known as helpers) for service provisioning. Such a way potentially increases the coverage and also expands the capacity of cellular network. In this paper, we propose a generic framework for Proximity as a Service (PaaS) with demands of service continuity, namely ContAct based Proximity (CAP) via opportunistic D2D communication. Mainly, fruitful contact information (e.g., contact duration, frequency and interval) is captured as a key metric, to handle an ubiquitous and PaaS through the optimal selection of helpers. The nature of CAP is evaluated under the Helsinki city scenario, with key factors influencing the service demands (e.g., success ratio, disruption duration and frequency). Simulation results show the advantage of CAP, in both success ratio and continuity of the service. This work is the first one to evaluate LTE-Direct and WiFi-Direct in opportunistic proximity services