Self-organized backpressure routing for the wireless mesh backhaul of small cells

The ever increasing demand for wireless data services has given a starring role to dense small cell (SC) deployments for mobile networks, as increasing frequency re-use by reducing cell size has historically been the most effective and simple way to increase capacity. Such densification entails challenges at the Transport Network Layer (TNL), which carries packets throughout the network, since hard-wired deployments of small cells prove to be cost-unfeasible and inflexible in some scenarios. The goal of this thesis is, precisely, to provide cost-effective and dynamic solutions for the TNL that drastically improve the performance of dense and semi-planned SC deployments. One approach to decrease costs and augment the dynamicity at the TNL is the creation of a wireless mesh backhaul amongst SCs to carry control and data plane traffic towards/from the core network. Unfortunately, these lowcost SC deployments preclude the use of current TNL routing approaches such as Multiprotocol Label Switching Traffic Profile (MPLS-TP), which was originally designed for hard-wired SC deployments. In particular, one of the main problems is that these schemes are unable to provide an even network resource consumption, which in wireless environments can lead to a substantial degradation of key network performance metrics for Mobile Network Operators. The equivalent of distributing load across resources in SC deployments is making better use of available paths, and so exploiting the capacity offered by the wireless mesh backhaul formed amongst SCs. To tackle such uneven consumption of network resources, this thesis presents the design, implementation, and extensive evaluation of a self-organized backpressure routing protocol explicitly designed for the wireless mesh backhaul formed amongst the wireless links of SCs. Whilst backpressure routing in theory promises throughput optimality, its implementation complexity introduces several concerns, such as scalability, large end-to-end latencies, and centralization of all the network state. To address these issues, we present a throughput suboptimal yet scalable, decentralized, low-overhead, and low-complexity backpressure routing scheme. More specifically, the contributions in this thesis can be summarized as follows: We formulate the routing problem for the wireless mesh backhaul from a stochastic network optimization perspective, and solve the network optimization problem using the Lyapunov-driftplus-penalty method. The Lyapunov drift refers to the difference of queue backlogs in the network between different time instants, whereas the penalty refers to the routing cost incurred by some network utility parameter to optimize. In our case, this parameter is based on minimizing the length of the path taken by packets to reach their intended destination. Rather than building routing tables, we leverage geolocation information as a key component to complement the minimization of the Lyapunov drift in a decentralized way. In fact, we observed that the combination of both components helps to mitigate backpressure limitations (e.g., scalability,centralization, and large end-to-end latencies). The drift-plus-penalty method uses a tunable optimization parameter that weight the relative importance of queue drift and routing cost. We find evidence that, in fact, this optimization parameter impacts the overall network performance. In light of this observation, we propose a self-organized controller based on locally available information and in the current packet being routed to tune such an optimization parameter under dynamic traffic demands. Thus, the goal of this heuristically built controller is to maintain the best trade-off between the Lyapunov drift and the penalty function to take into account the dynamic nature of semi-planned SC deployments. We propose low complexity heuristics to address problems that appear under different wireless mesh backhaul scenarios and conditions..

SANSA - Hybrid Terrestrial-Satellite Backhaul Network: Scenarios, Use cases, KPIs, Architecture, Network and Physical Layer Techniques

SANSA (Shared Access terrestrial-satellite backhaul Network enabled by Smart Antennas) is a project funded by the EU under the H2020 program. The main aim of SANSA is to boost the performance of mobile wireless backhaul networks in terms of capacity, energy efficiency and resilience against link failure or congestion while easing the deployment in both rural and urban areas and assuring at the same time an efficient use of the spectrum. This paper provides an overview and the first results of the project and, more specifically, it describes the regulatory environment, the State of The Art of mobile backhauling technologies regarding Ka band, the scenarios, the use cases, and the KPIs along with the SANSA architecture, network (NET), and physical (PHY) layer techniques used to enhance wireless backhauling capabilities

Software Defined Applications in Cellular and Optical Networks

abstract: Small wireless cells have the potential to overcome bottlenecks in wireless access through the sharing of spectrum resources. A novel access backhaul network architecture based on a Smart Gateway (Sm-GW) between the small cell base stations, e.g., LTE eNBs, and the conventional backhaul gateways, e.g., LTE Servicing/Packet Gateways (S/P-GWs) has been introduced to address the bottleneck. The Sm-GW flexibly schedules uplink transmissions for the eNBs. Based on software defined networking (SDN) a management mechanism that allows multiple operator to flexibly inter-operate via multiple Sm-GWs with a multitude of small cells has been proposed. This dissertation also comprehensively survey the studies that examine the SDN paradigm in optical networks. Along with the PHY functional split improvements, the performance of Distributed Converged Cable Access Platform (DCCAP) in the cable architectures especially for the Remote-PHY and Remote-MACPHY nodes has been evaluated. In the PHY functional split, in addition to the re-use of infrastructure with a common FFT module for multiple technologies, a novel cross functional split interaction to cache the repetitive QAM symbols across time at the remote node to reduce the transmission rate requirement of the fronthaul link has been proposed.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 201

System design issues in dense urban millimeter wave cellular networks

Upcoming deployments of cellular networks will see an increasing use of millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies, roughly between 20-100 GHz. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate some key design issues in dense urban mmWave cellular networks by developing mathematical models that are representative of these networks. In the first contribution, stochastic geometry (SG) is used to study the per user rate performance of multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) in downlink mmWave cellular network incorporating the impact of a spatially sparse blockage dependent multipath channel and hybrid precoding. Performance of MU-MIMO is then compared with single-user beamforming and spatial multiplexing in different network scenarios considering coverage, rate and power consumption tradeoffs to suggest when to use which MIMO scheme. The second contribution reconsiders a popular received signal power model used in system capacity analysis of MIMO wireless networks employing single user beamforming. A modification is suggested to the model by introducing a correction factor. An approximate analysis is done to justify incorporating such a factor and simulations are performed to validate it's importance. Although this contribution does not study a new system design issue for mmWave cellular, it highlights a shortcoming with using the popular received signal power model to study design issues in mmWave cellular networks. The third and fourth contributions investigate resource allocation in self-backhauled mmWave cellular networks. In order to enable affordable initial deployments of mmWave cellular, self-backhauling is envisioned as a cost-saving solution. The third contribution investigates how to divide resources between uplink and downlink for access and backhaul in self-backhauled networks with single hop wireless backhauling. The performance of dynamic time division duplexing (TDD) and integrated access-backhaul (IAB) is compared with static TDD and orthogonal access backhaul (OAB) strategies using a SG based model. The last contribution of this dissertation addresses the following key question for self-backhauled networks. What is the maximum extended coverage area that a single fiber site can support using multi-hop relaying, while still achieving a minimum target per user data rate? The problem of maximizing minimum per user rates is studied considering a series of deployments with a single fiber site and varying number of relays. Several design guidelines for multi-hop mmWave cellular networks are provided based on the analytical and empirical results.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Traffic and mobility management in large-scale networks of small cells

The growth in user demand for higher mobile data rates is driving Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and network infrastructure vendors towards the adoption of innovative solutions in areas that span from physical layer techniques (e.g., carrier aggregation, massive MIMO, etc.) to the Radio Access Network and the Evolved Packet Core, amongst other. In terms of network capacity, out of a millionfold increase since 1957, the use of wider spectrum (25x increase), the division of spectrum into smaller resources (5x), and the introduction of advanced modulation and coding schemes (5x) have played a less significant role than the improvements in system capacity due to cell size reduction (1600x). This justifies the academic and industrial interest in short-range, low-power cellular base stations, such as small cells. The shift from traditional macrocell-based deployments towards heterogeneous cellular networks raises the need for new architectural and procedural frameworks capable of providing a seamless integration of massive deployments of small cells into the existing cellular network infrastructure. This is particularly challenging for large-scale, all-wireless networks of small cells (NoS), where connectivity amongst base stations is provided via a wireless multi-hop backhaul. Networks of small cells are a cost-effective solution for improving network coverage and capacity in high user-density scenarios, such as transportation hubs, sports venues, convention centres, dense urban areas, shopping malls, corporate premises, university campuses, theme parks, etc. This Ph.D. Thesis provides an answer to the following research question: What is the architectural and procedural framework needed to support efficient traffic and mobility management mechanisms in massive deployments of all-wireless 3GPP Long-Term Evolution networks of small cells? In order to do so, we address three key research challenges in NoS. First, we present a 3GPP network architecture capable of supporting large-scale, all-wireless NoS deployments in the Evolved Packet System. This involves delegating core network functions onto new functional entities in the network of small cells, as well as adapting Transport Network Layer functionalities to the characteristics of a NoS in order to support key cellular services. Secondly, we address the issue of local location management, i.e., determining the approximate location of a mobile terminal in the NoS upon arrival of an incoming connection from the core network. This entails the design, implementation, and evaluation of efficient paging and Tracking Area Update mechanisms that can keep track of mobile terminals in the complex scenario of an all-wireless NoS whilst mitigating the impact on signalling traffic throughout the local NoS domain and towards the core network. Finally, we deal with the issue of traffic management in large-scale networks of small cells. On the one hand, we propose new 3GPP network procedures to support direct unicast communication between LTE terminals camped on the same NoS with minimal involvement from functional entities in the Evolved Packet Core. On the other hand, we define a set of extensions to the standard 3GPP Multicast/Broadcast Multimedia Service (MBMS) in order to improve the quality of experience of multicast/broadcast traffic services in high user-density scenarios.El crecimiento de la demanda de tasas de transmisión más altas está empujando a los operadores de redes móviles y a los fabricantes de equipos de red a la adopción de soluciones innovadoras en áreas que se extienden desde técnicas avanzadas de capa física (agregación de portadoras, esquemas MIMO masivos, etc.) hasta la red de acceso radio y troncal, entre otras. Desde 1957 la capacidad de las redes celulares se ha multiplicado por un millón. La utilización de mayor espectro radioeléctrico (incremento en factor 25), la división de dicho espectro en recursos más pequeños (factor 5) y la introducción de esquemas avanzados de modulación y codificación (factor 5) han desempeñado un papel menos significativo que las mejoras en la capacidad del sistema debidas a la reducción del tamaño de las celdas (factor 1600). Este hecho justifica el interés del mundo académico y de la industria en estaciones base de corto alcance y baja potencia, conocidas comúnmente como small cells. La transición de despliegues tradicionales de redes celulares basados en macroceldas hacia redes heterogéneas pone de manifiesto la necesidad de adoptar esquemas arquitecturales y de procedimientos capaces de proporcionar una integración transparente de despliegues masivos de small cells en la actual infraestructura de red celular. Este aspecto es particularmente complejo en el caso de despliegues a gran escala de redes inalámbricas de small cells (NoS, en sus siglas en inglés), donde la conectividad entre estaciones base se proporciona a través de una conexión troncal inalámbrica multi-salto. En general, las redes de small cells son una solución eficiente para mejorar la cobertura y la capacidad de la red celular en entornos de alta densidad de usuarios, como núcleos de transporte, sedes de eventos deportivos, palacios de congresos, áreas urbanas densas, centros comerciales, edificios corporativos, campus universitarios, parques temáticos, etc. El objetivo de esta Tesis de Doctorado es proporcionar una respuesta a la siguiente pregunta de investigación: ¿Cuál es el esquema arquitectural y de procedimientos de red necesario para soportar mecanismos eficientes de gestión de tráfico y movilidad en despliegues masivos de redes inalámbricas de small cells LTE? Para responder a esta pregunta nos centramos en tres desafíos clave en NoS. En primer lugar, presentamos una arquitectura de red 3GPP capaz de soportar despliegues a gran escala de redes inalámbricas de small cells en el Evolved Packet System, esto es, el sistema global de comunicaciones celulares LTE. Esto implica delegar funciones de red troncal en nuevas entidades funcionales desplegadas en la red de small cells, así como adaptar funcionalidades de la red de transporte a las características de una NoS para soportar servicios celulares clave. En segundo lugar, nos centramos en el problema de la gestión de movilidad local, es decir, determinar la localización aproximada de un terminal móvil en la NoS a la llegada de una solicitud de conexión desde la red troncal. Esto incluye el diseño, la implementación y la evaluación de mecanismos eficientes de paging y Tracking Area Update capaces de monitorizar terminales móviles en el complejo escenario de redes de small cells inalámbricas que, a la vez, mitiguen el impacto sobre el tráfico de señalización en el dominio local de la NoS y hacia la red troncal. Finalmente, estudiamos el problema de gestión de tráfico en despliegues a gran escala de redes inalámbricas de small cells. Por un lado, proponemos nuevos procedimientos de red 3GPP para soportar comunicaciones unicast directas entre terminales LTE registrados en la misma NoS con mínima intervención por parte de entidades funcionales en la red troncal. Por otro lado, definimos un conjunto de extensiones para mejorar la calidad de la experiencia del servicio estándar 3GPP de transmisión multicast/broadcast de tráfico multimedia (MBMS, en sus siglas en inglés) en entornos de alta densidad de usuarios

Bringing Stability to Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks were designed as a mean to rapidly deliver large-scale communication capabilities without the support of any prior infrastructure. Among the different properties of mesh networks, the self-organizing feature is particularly interesting for developing countries or for emergency situations. However, these benefits also bring new challenges. For example, the scheduling decision needs to be performed in a distributed manner at each node of the network. Toward this goal, most of the current mesh deployments are based on the IEEE 802.11 protocol, even if it was not designed for multi-hop communications. The main goals of this thesis are (i) to understand and model the behavior of IEEE 802.11-based mesh networks and more specifically the root causes that lead to congestion and network instability; (ii) to develop an experimental infrastructure in order to validate with measurements both the problems and the solutions discussed in this thesis; (iii) to build efficient hop-by-hop scheduling schemes that provide congestion control and inter-flow fairness in a practical way and that are backward-compatible with the current protocol; and (iv) to explain the non-monotonic relation between the end-to-end throughput and the source rate and to introduce a model to derive the rationale behind this artifact. First, we propose a Markovian model and we introduce the notion of stealing effect to explain the root causes behind the 3-hop stability boundary, where linear networks up to 3 hops are stable, and larger topologies are intrinsically unstable. We validate our analytical results both through simulations and through measurements on a small testbed deployment. Second, to support the experimental research presented in this thesis, we design and deploy a large-scale mesh network testbed on the EPFL campus. We plan our architecture to be as flexible as possible in order to support a wide range of other research areas such as IEEE 802.11 indoor localization and opportunistic routing. Third, we introduce EZ-flow, a novel hop-by-hop congestion-control mechanism that operates at the Medium Access Control layer. EZ-flow is fully backward-compatible with the existing IEEE 802.11 deployments and it works without any form of message passing. To perform its task EZ-flow takes advantage of the broadcast nature of the wireless medium in order to passively derive the queue size at the next-hop node. This information is then used by each node to adapt accordingly its channel access probability, through the contention window parameter of IEEE 802.11. After detailing the different components of EZ-flow, we analyze its performance analytically, through simulations and real measurements. Fourth, we show that hop-by-hop congestion-control can be efficiently performed at the network layer in order to not abuse the contention mechanism of IEEE 802.11. Additionally, we introduce a complete framework that jointly achieves congestion-control and fairness without requiring a prior knowledge of the network capacity region. To achieve the fairness part, we propose the Explore & Enhance algorithm that finds a fair and achievable rate allocation vector that maximizes a desired function of utility. We show experimentally that this algorithm reaches its objective by alternating between exploration phases (to discover the capacity region) and enhancement phases (to improve the utility through a gradient ascent). Finally, we note that, as opposed to wired networks, the multi-hop wireless capacity is usually unknown and time-varying. Therefore, we study how the end-to-end throughput evolves as a function of the source rate when operating both below and above the network capacity. We note that this evolution follows a non-monotonic curve and we explain, through an analytical model and simulations, the rationale behind the different transition points of this curve. Following our analysis, we show that no end-to-end congestion control can be throughput-optimal if it operates directly over IEEE 802.11. Hence, this supports the methodology of performing congestion control in a hop-by-hop manner. After validating experimentally the non-monotonicity, we compare through simulations different state-of-the-art scheduling schemes and we highlight the important tradeoff that exists in congestion-control schemes between efficiency (i.e., throughput-optimality) and robustness (i.e., no throughput collapse when the sources attempt to operate at a rate above the network capacity)

Building the Future Internet through FIRE

The Internet as we know it today is the result of a continuous activity for improving network communications, end user services, computational processes and also information technology infrastructures. The Internet has become a critical infrastructure for the human-being by offering complex networking services and end-user applications that all together have transformed all aspects, mainly economical, of our lives. Recently, with the advent of new paradigms and the progress in wireless technology, sensor networks and information systems and also the inexorable shift towards everything connected paradigm, first as known as the Internet of Things and lately envisioning into the Internet of Everything, a data-driven society has been created. In a data-driven society, productivity, knowledge, and experience are dependent on increasingly open, dynamic, interdependent and complex Internet services. The challenge for the Internet of the Future design is to build robust enabling technologies, implement and deploy adaptive systems, to create business opportunities considering increasing uncertainties and emergent systemic behaviors where humans and machines seamlessly cooperate