Deep Q-Learning for Self-Organizing Networks Fault Management and Radio Performance Improvement

We propose an algorithm to automate fault management in an outdoor cellular network using deep reinforcement learning (RL) against wireless impairments. This algorithm enables the cellular network cluster to self-heal by allowing RL to learn how to improve the downlink signal to interference plus noise ratio through exploration and exploitation of various alarm corrective actions. The main contributions of this paper are to 1) introduce a deep RL-based fault handling algorithm which self-organizing networks can implement in a polynomial runtime and 2) show that this fault management method can improve the radio link performance in a realistic network setup. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithm learns an action sequence to clear alarms and improve the performance in the cellular cluster better than existing algorithms, even against the randomness of the network fault occurrences and user movements.Comment: (c) 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other work

Partially Blind Handovers for mmWave New Radio Aided by Sub-6 GHz LTE Signaling

For a base station that supports cellular communications in sub-6 GHz LTE and millimeter (mmWave) bands, we propose a supervised machine learning algorithm to improve the success rate in the handover between the two radio frequencies using sub-6 GHz and mmWave prior channel measurements within a temporal window. The main contributions of our paper are to 1) introduce partially blind handovers, 2) employ machine learning to perform handover success predictions from sub-6 GHz to mmWave frequencies, and 3) show that this machine learning based algorithm combined with partially blind handovers can improve the handover success rate in a realistic network setup of colocated cells. Simulation results show improvement in handover success rates for our proposed algorithm compared to standard handover algorithms.Comment: (c) 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other work

Complex Block Floating-Point Format with Box Encoding For Wordlength Reduction in Communication Systems

We propose a new complex block floating-point format to reduce implementation complexity. The new format achieves wordlength reduction by sharing an exponent across the block of samples, and uses box encoding for the shared exponent to reduce quantization error. Arithmetic operations are performed on blocks of samples at time, which can also reduce implementation complexity. For a case study of a baseband quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmitter and receiver, we quantify the tradeoffs in signal quality vs. implementation complexity using the new approach to represent IQ samples. Signal quality is measured using error vector magnitude (EVM) in the receiver, and implementation complexity is measured in terms of arithmetic complexity as well as memory allocation and memory input/output rates. The primary contributions of this paper are (1) a complex block floating-point format with box encoding of the shared exponent to reduce quantization error, (2) arithmetic operations using the new complex block floating-point format, and (3) a QAM transceiver case study to quantify signal quality vs. implementation complexity tradeoffs using the new format and arithmetic operations.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers 201

A Portable Compton Gamma-Ray Camera Design

The purpose of this research is to investigate the angular resolution, efficiency, and energy resolution possible from a portable Compton camera gamma ray imaging system for possible use in the field of nuclear nonproliferation. The proposed device uses room temperature semiconductor and position sensitive scintillation detectors. The position and energy resolution (and their energy dependence) of a room temperature lithium drifted silicon (Si(Li)) detector and a position sensitive thallium -doped sodium iodide (NaI(Tl)) scintillation detector are investigated. The position and energy resolution of the position sensitive scintillation detector is also modeled computationally, and the results compared to measured data. An efficiency model is also presented. The angular resolution, efficiency, and energy resolution of the proposed system are calculated. The same computational methods are then applied to a hypothetical position sensitive Thallium doped cesium iodide (CsI(Tl)) scintillator. Based on the results, the angular resolution and energy resolution of a system employing this type of position sensitive detector coupled to the same room temperature Si(Li) detector is predicted

GNSS Signal Authentication via Power and Distortion Monitoring

We propose a simple low-cost technique that enables civil Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and other civil global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers to reliably detect carry-off spoofing and jamming. The technique, which we call the Power-Distortion detector, classifies received signals as interference-free, multipath-afflicted, spoofed, or jammed according to observations of received power and correlatio n function distortion. It does not depend on external hardware or a network connection and can be readily implemented on many receivers via a firmware update. Crucially, the detector can with high probability distinguish low-power spoofing from ordinary multipath. In testing against over 25 high-quality empirical data sets yielding over 900,000 separate detection tests, the detector correctly alarms on all malicious spoofing or jamming attack s while maintaining a <0.5% single-channel false alarm rate.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic