Visible Light Communications (VLC) for Ambient Assisted Living

With the advent of high efficacy light emitting diode directional lamps as a key component in focal lighting, new possibilities emerge for re-designing the smart home scenario. A smart home scenario is characterized by enabled intelligent interworking of various wireless and wired technologies to provide inhabitants with ease of use of appliances, while creating a personalized and safe ambience space. More and more high and low data rate circulates within the indoor ambient space (e.g., home, hospitals, offices). Although, unlicensed technologies, such as wireless local area networks can take upon part of the indoor traffic, the ever increasing demand for such data, and users, calls for either use of licensed or novel unlicensed wireless communication technologies as part of the smart home enablers. This paper focuses on the potentials of visible light communications (VLCs), jointly with radio and fiber communications, to support very dense low and high data rate connectivity, while enabling deployment of secure-sensitive indoor applications, including indoor tracking and localization. The paper proposes a scenario for integrating VLC into the smart home scenario and a conceptual supporting architecture for its deployment. Further, the technical challenges and possible roadmap for the actual deployment are analyzed for the particular case of an eHealth scenario where the utilization of VLC technology is the enabler of the cost-efficient rollout of the required infrastructure and thus the game-changer in a multi-billion eHealth niche that is seeking for cost affordable solutions.     

Cellular Network Performance Analysis: Handoff Algorithms Based on Mobile Location and Area Information

Mobile world's rapid growth has spurred development of new protocols and new algorithms to meet changing operation requirements such as mobile networking, and quality-of-service support. A key requirement in the bearer capabilities is the handover. The freedom to be able to make and receive calls anywhere, at any time, creating a totally new dimension in human communications has frequently been advertised as the main advantage of new wireless systems. Handovers are a key concept in providing this mobility. It makes it possible for a user to travel from one cell to another while having a seamless connection. Network operators give emphasis to optimize handover, since it is strongly related to dropped calls, network overload and subsequently users' criticism. The ability of a cellular network to perform efficient handovers is crucial to offer attractive services as real-time applications or streaming media as planned in third generation networks. Since signal propagation and pathloss are complex in nature, we can expect unnecessary and wrong handoff executions. Both UMTS and those of the second generation (GSM) systems will require redefined handoff algorithms of active connections as the smooth mobility support and continuous connection are essential issues for obtaining high performance and increasing user satisfaction. In this paper we present a set of intelligent algorithms using the mobile terminal (MT) location information and area awareness to assist safe handoff decisions. The implemented algorithms are validated by means of cellular network simulators that clearly show the impact of these techniques to major system performance metrics.     

A Survey of IoT Key Enabling and Future Technologies: 5G,Mobile IoT,Sematic Web and Applications

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the communications paradigm that can provide the potential of ultimate communication. The IoT paradigm describes communication not only human to human (H2H) but also machine to machine (M2M) without the need of human interference. In this paper, we examine, review and present the current IoT technologies starting from the physical layer to the application and data layer. Additionally, we focus on future IoT key enabling technologies like the new fifth generation (5G) networks and Semantic Web. Finally, we present main IoT application domains like smart cities, transportation, logistics, and healthcare.     

BETaaS: A Platform for Development and Execution of Machine-to-Machine Applications in the Internet of Things

Wireless Personal Communications - The integration of everyday objects into the Internet represents the foundation of the forthcoming Internet of Things (IoT). Smart objects will be the building...     

Dynamic segmentation of cellular networks for improved handover performance

One of the most important initial steps, inherent in the planning procedure of cellular networks, is their segmentation in operational parts that is performed at different levels corresponding to the hierarchy and topology of the network. The major goal of this procedure is the efficient deployment of the system and management of the distributed segmented parts while minimizing the signaling overhead in the network. As we show here, it can take place even during the operational phase of the network when certain shortcomings appear. In this work, we present an approach based on graph theory for the segmentation of cellular networks at the Base Station Controller (BSC) level that achieves a significant increase in the performance of the network. In particular, with the proposed method, both the handover attempts when a mobile station is moving to a cell belonging to a different BSC as well as the corresponding handover failure rate are decreased significantly, allowing for a continuous network upgrade. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

eWALL: An Intelligent Caring Home Environment Offering Personalized Context-Aware Applications Based on Advanced Sensing

Wireless Personal Communications - Independent living of senior citizens is one of the main challenges linked to the ageing population. Senior citizens may suffer from a number of diseases,...     

A Real-Time Monitoring and Intelligent Decisions-Making Platform for Enhanced Radio Resource Management in Wireless Cellular Systems

Congestion management in cellular networks is of prime importance for the mobile network operators of present and future generations. Nowadays cellular operators utilize improved planning techniques for enhanced capacity management, but on the other hand the number of mobile subscribers rapidly increases and additionally, new data-technologies for wireless access add extra traffic to the already overloaded networks, often causing serious problems to their performance. In this paper, we present a resource management system for increasing the efficiency of 2G and 2.5G cellular networks especially during overloading periods through the introduction of innovative extra elements. For validating the system's behavior, a set of trials have been performed focusing on alleviating both voice and data congestion problems. The results of these trials show important improvements on the network's capacity availability when the presented system intervenes.     

Requirements and Algorithms for Cooperation of Heterogeneous Radio Access Networks

This paper defines the requirements for cooperation of heterogeneous radio access networks (RANs) and proposes a novel radio resource management (RRM) framework for support of mobility and quality of service (QoS) in a heterogeneous communication environment comprising IMT-Advanced and legacy systems. The reference IMT-Advanced system is the one developed within the IST project WINNER (IST-2003-507581 Project Wireless Initiative New Radio, ). The RRM mechanisms are evolved from traditional ones to comply with the requirements imposed by a simplified new (RAN) architecture as proposed for IMT-Advanced systems. The RRM mechanisms are evaluated for the scenario of intra-RAN and inter-RAN user mobility. The RRM framework incorporates as novelty improved triggering mechanisms, a network-controlled mobility management scheme with policy enforcement on different levels in the RAN architecture, and a distributed handover and admission control mechanism for fast decision polling at different levels of the RAN. The RRM framework is further enhanced with computational intelligence based on fuzzy logic algorithms to enhance the process of handover. The RRM framework has been evaluated in terms of reduced user blocking probabilities.