5,909 research outputs found
Toward End-to-End, Full-Stack 6G Terahertz Networks
Recent evolutions in semiconductors have brought the terahertz band in the
spotlight as an enabler for terabit-per-second communications in 6G networks.
Most of the research so far, however, has focused on understanding the physics
of terahertz devices, circuitry and propagation, and on studying physical layer
solutions. However, integrating this technology in complex mobile networks
requires a proper design of the full communication stack, to address link- and
system-level challenges related to network setup, management, coordination,
energy efficiency, and end-to-end connectivity. This paper provides an overview
of the issues that need to be overcome to introduce the terahertz spectrum in
mobile networks, from a MAC, network and transport layer perspective, with
considerations on the performance of end-to-end data flows on terahertz
connections.Comment: Published on IEEE Communications Magazine, THz Communications: A
Catalyst for the Wireless Future, 7 pages, 6 figure
Enabling RAN Slicing Through Carrier Aggregation in mmWave Cellular Networks
The ever increasing number of connected devices and of new and heterogeneous
mobile use cases implies that 5G cellular systems will face demanding technical
challenges. For example, Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) and
enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) scenarios present orthogonal Quality of
Service (QoS) requirements that 5G aims to satisfy with a unified Radio Access
Network (RAN) design. Network slicing and mmWave communications have been
identified as possible enablers for 5G. They provide, respectively, the
necessary scalability and flexibility to adapt the network to each specific use
case environment, and low latency and multi-gigabit-per-second wireless links,
which tap into a vast, currently unused portion of the spectrum. The
optimization and integration of these technologies is still an open research
challenge, which requires innovations at different layers of the protocol
stack. This paper proposes to combine them in a RAN slicing framework for
mmWaves, based on carrier aggregation. Notably, we introduce MilliSlice, a
cross-carrier scheduling policy that exploits the diversity of the carriers and
maximizes their utilization, thus simultaneously guaranteeing high throughput
for the eMBB slices and low latency and high reliability for the URLLC flows.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. Proc. of the 18th Mediterranean Communication and
Computer Networking Conference (MedComNet 2020), Arona, Italy, 202
5GNOW: Challenging the LTE Design Paradigms of Orthogonality and Synchronicity
LTE and LTE-Advanced have been optimized to deliver high bandwidth pipes to
wireless users. The transport mechanisms have been tailored to maximize single
cell performance by enforcing strict synchronism and orthogonality within a
single cell and within a single contiguous frequency band. Various emerging
trends reveal major shortcomings of those design criteria: 1) The fraction of
machine-type-communications (MTC) is growing fast. Transmissions of this kind
are suffering from the bulky procedures necessary to ensure strict synchronism.
2) Collaborative schemes have been introduced to boost capacity and coverage
(CoMP), and wireless networks are becoming more and more heterogeneous
following the non-uniform distribution of users. Tremendous efforts must be
spent to collect the gains and to manage such systems under the premise of
strict synchronism and orthogonality. 3) The advent of the Digital Agenda and
the introduction of carrier aggregation are forcing the transmission systems to
deal with fragmented spectrum. 5GNOW is an European research project supported
by the European Commission within FP7 ICT Call 8. It will question the design
targets of LTE and LTE-Advanced having these shortcomings in mind and the
obedience to strict synchronism and orthogonality will be challenged. It will
develop new PHY and MAC layer concepts being better suited to meet the upcoming
needs with respect to service variety and heterogeneous transmission setups.
Wireless transmission networks following the outcomes of 5GNOW will be better
suited to meet the manifoldness of services, device classes and transmission
setups present in envisioned future scenarios like smart cities. The
integration of systems relying heavily on MTC into the communication network
will be eased. The per-user experience will be more uniform and satisfying. To
ensure this 5GNOW will contribute to upcoming 5G standardization.Comment: Submitted to Workshop on Mobile and Wireless Communication Systems
for 2020 and beyond (at IEEE VTC 2013, Spring
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