IEEE PIMRC'16 TUTORIALS
Tutorials - Sunday 4th September
CANCELLED T1: On the Use of Programmable SoCs in the Design, Implementation and Deployment of 5G Wireless Systems - Sunday 4 September, 09:00-12:30
T2: The Road to 5G: Small-Cells, Context-Awareness and Ultra Dense Networks
Sunday 4 September, 09:00-12:50
While small cell densification is a promising solution to tame increasing traffic demands, a systematic deployment of small cells is cost-inefficient and poses serious challenges in terms of backhaul and interference. In this tutorial, we provide a brief overview on SCNs while highlighting key challenges, associated techniques, and future landscape towards 5G. First, we delve into the details of advanced interference management techniques by introducing concepts such as cell range expansion (CRE), cell association, and intercell and interference coordination (ICIC) that lie at the heart of 5G networks. Then, we discuss in detail the concept of self-organizing networks (SONs) and its key role in self-configuring and self-optimizing small cell deployment. Here, we focus on novel game-theoretic and learning techniques that are seen as an enabler for deploying self-optimizing and self-configuring heterogeneous and small cell networks. In the second part of the tutorial, we will present an array of important topics such as cellular-WiFi integration (2015 COMSOC Fred Ellersick Prize), multi connectivity, dynamic TDD and decoupled uplink-downlink, full duplexing, co-primary operator spectrum sharing (CoPSS), backhaul-aware resource management, and context-aware edge caching (2016 COMSOC Best Tutorial Prize). The tutorial will conclude with a number of trending topics including connected vehicles (V2V/V2I), deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and other 5G-related topics. The objective of this tutorial is two-fold, first it will provide a good overview of the technical challenges and open problems of 5G, and second it will showcase a number of mathematical tools from which the audience will benefit.
Trainer: Prof. Mehdi Bennis
T3: Towards Network Softwarization
Sunday 4 September, 14:10-18:00
This tutorial will be shedding light on network softwarisation, an important vision towards the realization of elastic and flexible 5G mobile systems. The tutorial will commence with a brief introduction of major 3GPP wireless technologies, namely GSM, GPRS, UMTS and LTE, comparing amongst the different relevant architectures and their evolution to the nowadays’ Evolved Packet System (EPS). After a short discussion on the basic principles of LTE, the tutorial presents the major architectural enhancements that have been already standardized within 3GPP for supporting EPS. The tutorial will subsequently lay emphasis on the functional and technical requirements of 5G mobile systems and discuss relevant opportunities, challenges, and expectations. The tutorial will be afterwards touching upon cloud computing technologies, virtualization techniques, and software defined networking (SDN). The main focus will be towards the use-case of these technologies in the context of network softwarisation to create programmable virtual mobile networks, highlighting the key performance indicators and aspects for ensuring carrier-grade service delivery. The tutorial will also cover the concept of network function virtualization (NFV), detailing virtual network function (VNF) management and orchestration, and showcasing NFV and SDN as key technology enablers for the creation of elastic and flexible 5G mobile systems. The tutorial will be then describing, using concrete examples, how cloud-based virtual mobile networks can be designed, instantiated, configured, managed, and orchestrated, and that using current cloud infrastructure management tools, such as OpenStack and OpenDaylight. The tutorial will finish by highlighting few open issues that are forming the focus of research efforts in the network softwarisation arena.
Trainer: Dr. Tarik Taleb
T4: Energy-Neutral System-Level Analysis and Optimization of 5G Wireless Networks
Sunday 4 September, 14:10-18:00
The Internet of Things (IoT) will connect billions of devices by 2020. Such systems suppose batteries and/or energy harvesting from the environment, which also bets for very low energy devices. In order to enable IoT service capabilities, 5G wireless networks will need to bring a drastic energy efficiency improvement and will need to develop energy harvesting capabilities. This energy chase will cover low-energy devices and network elements, and will rely on the availability of renewable energy sources, dedicated power sources, as well as the possibility of harvesting energy directly from the radio waves that are primarily used for data transmission. This leads to a new design space, where the availability of energy is not deterministic anymore but may depend on environmental factors, the interference may not necessarily be harmful as it may be a natural source electromagnetic-based power to be used for replenishing the batteries of low-energy devices, and the intended signals may be exploited for both data transmission and energy harvesting. This paradigm-shift introduces a new concept in the design of 5G wireless networks: energy-neutrality. Energy-neutral networks are systems that not only make an efficient use of the available energy, but, more importantly, that operate in a complete self-powered fashion. The present tutorial provides the audience with a complete survey of the potential benefits, research challenges, implementation efforts and application of technologies and protocols for achieving energy-neutrality, as well as the mathematical tools for their modeling, analysis and optimization. This tutorial is unique of its kind, as it tackles both system-level modeling and optimization aspects, which are usually treated independently. Special focus will be put on two methodologies for enabling the system-level modeling and the system-level and distributed optimization of energy-neutral 5G wireless networks: stochastic geometry and fractional programming. In the proposed tutorial, we illustrate how several candidate transmission technologies, communication protocols, and network architectures for 5G can be modeled, studied and optimized for their energy-neutral operation.
Trainers: Alessio Zappone, Marco Di Renzo and Eduard Jorswieck
T5: Internet of Medical things: Wearable wireless sensors systems for healthcare monitoring applications
Sunday 4 September, 14:10-18:00
Recent technological advancements in wireless low power/low range communication systems, MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) technology and integrated circuits have enabled low-power, intelligent, miniaturised, nano-technology sensor nodes strategically placed around the human body to be used in various applications, such as wearable wireless healthcare monitoring systems. This exciting new area of research is called Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) and leverages the emerging IEEE 802.15.6 and IEEE 802.15.4j standards, specifically standardised for Internet of Medical Things (IoMTs). This tutorial provides a survey on the current state-of-art of WBANs based on the latest standards which enable IoMTs with a range of representative applications. From these applications, we will abstract out the major challenges to realising the wearable wireless sensors systems for healthcare monitoring applications. Part I of the tutorial will start with an overview of WBANs, with a focus on the fundamental concepts of healthcare sensor hardware and measurement circuits. Furthermore related low power /low range wireless communication technologies and standards used for WBANs, the challenges and impairments of wireless media for IoMTs will be addressed. Introduction session will conclude by addressing the data acquisition and validation techniques for processing the healthcare data collected from the wearable wireless sensor networks. In Part II of the tutorial, the key design issues for wearable Activity Recognition systems, as an example of healthcare applications, will be presented. Design issues with respect to type/number/location of sensors according to the purpose of the application will be discussed. Emerging IoMTs research opportunities and challenges will be discussed in Part III of the tutorial. Topics in this section cover both theoretical and practical aspects, including the wearable system limitations, selection of attributes and sensors, obtrusiveness, data collection protocols, recognition performance criteria, energy consumption, processing and user flexibility. Open issues and challenges within each area are also explored as a source of inspiration towards future developments in WBANs. An activity recognition prototype demonstration will conclude the tutorial to provide the practical aspects and challenges for a wearable wireless sensor network solution.
Trainer: Dr. Mona Ghassemian
Tutorials - Thursday 8th September
T6: Wireless Proactive Caching for 5G
Thursday 8 September, 09:00-12:50
In the 90s, the world-wide-web traffic exploded, leading its inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee to declare the network congestion as one of the main issue of the future internet. In this client-server model, a website is downloaded from the same server by every Internet user, resulting in bottlenecks in heavy traffic conditions and creating scalability issues in the network. This has been resolved by usage of proxy/caching servers and later on with the rise of content delivery networks (CDNs). The key idea was to geographically replicate the contents (i.e., video, picture, audio, etc..) closers to the users, so that the end-to-end delay is decreased and unnecessary usage of the infrastructure is avoided. Nowadays, researchers are revisiting the same challenge in the context of wireless networks. Mobile data traffic sharply increases each year, due to the rich multi-media applications, video streaming, social networks, and billions of connected users and devices. This increasing mobile data traffic is expected to reach by 2018 roughly 60% of the total network traffic. In this regard, caching contents at the edge of the network, namely at the base station and user terminals, is a promising way of offloading the backhaul (especially crucial in dense network deployments) and decreasing the end-to-end content access delays, since the requested contents become very close to the users. Although the key motivation of wireless edge caching is similar to the caching in wired networks, a number of technical challenges remain unsolved and involve several scientific disciplines such as networking, information theory, machine learning, and wireless communications. The aim of this tutorial is therefore to present some of key techniques available in wireless edge caching and discuss existing challenges and future directions. Some of well-known technical misconceptions and business barriers are also elaborated.
Trainers: Dr. Ejder Baştuğ and Mérouane Debbah
T9: Radio Propagation: Measurements, Modelling and Channel Characterisation
Thursday 8 September, 09:00-12:50
This tutorial outlines methods, measurement equipment, and analysis and modelling procedures used by experts to make radio channel models and design parameters available to systems engineers. The target audience is one of students and practicing engineers considering research in the field or systems engineers who use the results from such work and are seeking better knowledge of how information of importance to them is compiled. The tutorial begins with an overview, using material from “Radio Propagation Measurement and Channel Modelling,” by Prof. Salous, of radio propagation basics with special attention to frequencies between 6 GHz and 60 GHz. Representation of radio channels as linear filters, estimation of channel impulse response functions, and applications are covered next. Best practices for analysing measured data, including: estimation and reporting of impulse response estimates and static rms delay spreads; appropriate intervals for dynamic channel analysis and estimation and application of average power delay profile, dynamic rms delay spread, frequency correlation function, and coherence bandwidth results are discussed. An overview of advanced topics related to double directional sounding and spatial channel modelling for MIMO applications follows. Attention is finally turned to narrowband channel modelling for a discussion on the removal of the influence of long term fading from measurements, and the modelling of short term fading, including estimation of Rician K ratios, and determining the goodness of fit of experimentally-determined fading distributions to hypothesised models. A discussion of passive and active measurement techniques using both standard test equipment, and custom radio channel sounders opens the second part of the tutorial. Observations are made on the assessment of radio coverage for placement of relay stations and spectral sensing for cognitive radio. Considerations in the design and implementation of radio channel measurement equipment are discussed as well as the planning and conduct of measurements for different environments. This includes consideration of: waveforms, processing gains, time and frequency synchronisation, stability and phase noise, time delay windowing and Doppler coverage. Resolution in time delay and Doppler shift are related to the radar ambiguity function, and techniques for the calibration of sounders are described and compared. Suitable sounder architectures for probing single band as well as multiple band radio links, with both single antenna and multi-antenna sounders are discussed. The tutorial ends with examples showing and comparing measured data and experimental results from the GSM and UMTS bands as well as from higher frequencies ranging up to 60 GHz.
Trainers: Prof. Sana Salous and Dr. Robert Bultitude
T7: Software Defined Wireless Networks
Thursday 8 September, 14:10-18:00
Software defined wireless networking (SDWN) is a new communications paradigm and an essential technology in the next-generation 5G systems. SDWN separates the data plane and the control plane in the wireless communication networks. In an SDWN, software oriented network architecture design, the separation of the data and control planes, and network virtualization, can unfold numerous advantages to manage network complexity and dynamics. SDWN is a very new research topic. It is very important to discuss and promote the concept and the potentials of SDWN. In this tutorial, we will start from basic concepts and main principles on both software defined networking and software defined wireless networks. Then we will discuss about the architectures, protocol design and performance issues for the emerging SDWN scenarios. These applications include software defined radio access networks, software defined sensor networks, software defined mesh networks and software defined vehicular networks. Next we will focus on the research challenges related to resource management, control and optimization in SDWN. We will also discuss about the implementation examples and testbed for SDWN. Finally, the tutorial will point out several new research directions in this area.
Trainers: Yan Zhang and Sabita Maharjan
T8: Standards for the Industrial IoT: a hands-on tutorial with OpenWSN and OpenMote
Thursday 8 September, 14:10-18:00
This tutorial aims at acquainting its audience with ongoing standardization activities around the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), and provide hands-on experience through the OpenWSN and OpenMote ecosystems. OpenWSN was founded in 2010 and together with the OpenMote platform, which was launched in 2014, it has become the de-facto open-source implementation of IEEE802.15.4 Time Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH). TSCH is the standard at the heart of the IIoT, which enables ultra-high reliability and low-power operation. This tutorial is tailored to the level of practicing engineers and advanced researchers who are interested in IIoT, as well as hands-on experience.
Trainers: Pere Tuset, Xavier Vilajosana, Thomas Watteyne and Tengfei Chang
More information about this tutorial,
here.
