Leveraging multiuser diversity for adaptive hybrid satellite‐LTE downlink scheduler (H‐MUDoS) in emerging 5G‐satellite network

In order to achieve ubiquitous coverage and service continuity in future 5G network, satellite‐based access is the best solution to complement the terrestrial LTE‐A. In light of this, we introduce a channel‐aware hybrid scheduling technique on the basis of satellite‐LTE spectrum sharing. According to the user‐experienced channel, base stations (eNodeB) and the satellite will work cooperatively. The eNodeB mainly provides service in urban area for high density population. Meanwhile, the satellite will perform either offloading, providing service for under‐served users, or extra coverage for users in rural and remote areas having no coverage of eNodeB. Leveraging the multiuser diversity, we implement a new metrics computation method for hybrid satellite‐LTE downlink scheduler (H‐MUDoS). Compared with other existing schedulers, simulation results clearly demonstrate the high performance of H‐MUDoS in terms of spectral efficiency in addition to improvement of the quality‐of‐service requirements and capacity maximization.     

HARQ–ARQ interaction method for LTE‐based mobile satellite communication system

Hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) of the terrestrial long‐term evolution (LTE) system are designed considering the very short propagation delay of terrestrial environment. Therefore, when HARQ and ARQ are applied to the LTE‐based mobile satellite communication system, the inefficiency is caused by the long propagation delay of satellite environment. This paper proposes the interaction method between HARQ and ARQ for the decrease of inefficiency in the LTE‐based mobile satellite communication system. The existing concept of layered architecture about HARQ and ARQ is also maintained in our interaction method. Simulation results reveal that our proposed scheme can provide the larger spectrum efficiency than that of the non‐interaction scheme in all environments. The performance improvement can be up to 2.04 times through the interaction method. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Receiver memory management method for HARQ in LTE‐based satellite communication system

For the successful deployment of the long term evolution (LTE)‐based mobile satellite service, the price of a user terminal is one of the major factors. A user terminal for the LTE‐based satellite communication needs to be implemented with a similar hardware size that is used for a terrestrial LTE user terminal. However, for quality of service provision, the satellite user terminal needs a larger size of memories than the terrestrial terminal does. This is very evident by considering that the N‐channel stop and wait hybrid automatic repeat request requires proportionally increasing memory size by the propagation delay, resulting in unmanageable amount of memories in the satellite system. To resolve this problem, we propose an efficient memory management method at the user terminal when the size of memory is insufficient. The simulation results in this paper reveal that the proposed method can increase the throughput about 20.7% when a user terminal is operated under very low throughput condition with an insufficient memory size, compared with the case without memory management scheme. In addition, we show that the additional throughput gain can be obtained by the packet scheduling using the information of receiver memory status. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the eNB‐based energy‐saving cooperation techniques for LTE access networks

Energy efficiency is one of the top priorities for future cellular networks, which could be accomplished by implementing cooperative mechanisms. In this paper, we propose three evolved node B (eNB)‐centric energy‐saving cooperation techniques for long‐term evolution (LTE) systems. These techniques, named as intra‐network, inter‐network, and joint cooperation, involve traffic‐aware intelligent cooperation among eNBs belonging to the same or different networks. Our proposed techniques dynamically reconfigure LTE access networks in real time utilizing less number of active eNBs and thus, achieve energy savings. In addition, these techniques are distributed and self‐organizing in nature. Analytical models for evaluating switching dynamics of eNBs under these cooperation mechanisms are also formulated. We thoroughly investigate the proposed system under different numbers of cooperating networks, traffic scenarios, eNB power profiles, and their switching thresholds. Optimal energy savings while maintaining quality of service is also evaluated. Results indicate a significant reduction in network energy consumption. System performance in terms of network capacity utilization, switching statistics, additional transmit power, and eNB sleeping patterns is also investigated. Finally, a comprehensive comparison with other works is provided for further validation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimization and efficient detection of primary synchronization signal for multi‐beam satellite‐LTE systems

A new design of primary synchronization signal (PSS) sequences and an efficient detection algorithm for multi‐beam satellite long‐term evolution (LTE) systems are investigated in this paper. First, a transmit‐timing adjustment method is proposed to reduce the large time difference of arrival of received signals from different satellites. Then, using the particular subcarrier mapping scheme of LTE, original Zadoff–Chu sequences are generalized to obtain more candidate sequences with good correlation properties. Later on, choosing an optimal subset from these candidate sequences, new PSS sequences for seamless global coverage multi‐beam satellite‐LTE systems are obtained. Subsequently, an efficient synchronization and low complexity PSS detection algorithm using interference cancellation method is presented. Finally, simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ATM‐based multimedia communication via NGSO‐satellites

Future broadband satellite networks for multimedia will be seamlessly integrated into terrestrial broadband networks which often use asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and recently also the less complex multi protocol label switching (MPLS) technique as transmission and switching protocol. In light of this, future broadband satellite networks may adopt the ATM transmission scheme and implement ATM or ATM‐like switches on board the satellites. However, as compared to communication in fixed networks, satellite communication is characterized by special constraints (e.g. signal delay, channel quality, dynamic network topology) that require novel ATM‐based communication technology for satellite systems. This paper presents results from the ATM‐Sat project that aims to complete this technically challenging and important R&D task in the cooperation between DLR, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft and Tesat‐Spacecom. In brief the following aspects have been addressed in the ATM‐Sat project:

• development of the concept and communication technology for a multimedia satellite system with,
  • non‐geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellites;
  • inter satellite links (ISLs);
  • on‐board ATM switching;
  • fixed and mobile terminals;
• verification of the developed communication technology with a demonstrator.

In particular the ATM‐Sat R&D tasks cover the system and protocol architecture, on‐board processing, ISL routing, up/downlink and on board ATM resource management (including medium access control), error control, IP over satellite‐ATM, and active intelligent antennas. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reduction of Outage Probability due to Handover by Mitigating Inter‐cell Interference in Long‐Term Evolution Networks

The burgeoning growth of real‐time applications, such as interactive video and VoIP, places a heavy demand for a high data rate and guarantee of QoS from a network. This is being addressed by fourth generation networks such as Long‐Term Evolution (LTE). But, the mobility of user equipment that needs to be handed over to a new evolved node base‐station (eNB) while maintaining connectivity with high data rates poses a significant challenge that needs to be addressed. Handover (HO) normally takes place at cell borders, which normally suffers high interference. This inter‐cell interference (ICI) can affect HO procedures, as well as reduce throughput. In this paper, soft frequency reuse (SFR) and multiple preparations (MP), so‐called SFRAMP, are proposed to provide a seamless and fast handover with high throughput by keeping the ICI low. Simulation results using LTE‐Sim show that the outage probability and delay are reduced by 24.4% and 11.9%, respectively, over the hard handover method — quite a significant result.     

Handover authentication between different types of eNBs in LTE networks

There are two types of base stations in the long term evolution (LTE) wireless networks, home eNodeB (HeNB) and eNodeB (eNB). It is critical to achieve seamless handovers between the HeNB and the eNB in order to support mobility in the LTE networks. A handover from an eNB/HeNB to a new eNB/HeNB, suggested by the third generation partnership project (3GPP), requires distinct procedures for different mobility scenarios, which will increase the system complexity. Besides, the existing handover schemes for other wireless networks are not suitable for the mobility scenarios in the LTE networks due to their inherent vulnerabilities. In this paper, we propose a fast and secure handover authentication scheme, which is to fit in with most of the mobility scenarios in the LTE networks. Compared with other handover schemes, our scheme cannot only achieve a simple authentication process with desirable efficiency, but also provide several security features including perfect forward/backward secrecy (PFS/PBS), which have never been achieved by the previous works. The experiment results and formal verification by using the automated validation of internet security protocols and applications (AVISPA) tool show that the proposed scheme is efficient and secure against various malicious attacks.     

Downlink cross‐layer scheduling strategies for long‐term evolution and long‐term evolution‐advanced systems

The most recent trend in the Information and Communication Technology world is toward an ever growing demand of mobile heterogeneous services that imply the management of different quality of service requirements and priorities among different type of users. The long‐term evolution (LTE)/LTE‐advanced standards have been introduced aiming to cope with this challenge. In particular, the resource allocation problem in downlink needs to be carefully considered. Herein, a solution is proposed by resorting to a modified multidimensional multiple‐choice knapsack problem modeling, leading to an efficient solution. The proposed algorithm is able to manage different traffic flows taking into account users priority, queues delay, and channel conditions achieving quasi‐optimal performance results with a lower complexity. The numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed solution with respect to other alternatives. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

LTE RLC UM模式在卫星通信中的适应性研究

卫星环境和地面环境差异显著,存在链路时延大、信道衰落较平坦和波束覆盖范围广等特点,因此卫星移动通信4G化不能照搬地面LTE标准。针对GEO卫星通信特点,分析了LTE RLC UM模式在大时延卫星链路中的适应性,重点对RLC UM参数sn-Field Length和t-Reordering的功能和取值进行了论述,给出了对驻留时间T的建模。采用C语音实现了RLC协议仿真,并用仿真结果验证了RLC UM模式的各项参数和业务速率对驻留时间T的影响,可为LTE over Satellite设计提供参考。     

LTE空中接口在卫星通信中的适用性

目前LTE体制已成熟,在卫星通信系统中应用LTE技术有利于星地一体化网络的发展.移动卫星系统在4G网络中成功应用的一个关键因素是设备和地面系统得到最大的通用性.一种有效的解决这个问题的方法是利用地面空中接口作为卫星空中接口的基础.由于3GPP(The 3rd Generation Partnership Project...     

On the secrecy performance of integrated satellite‐aerial‐terrestrial networks

This paper investigates secure transmission of an integrated satellite‐aerial‐terrestrial network (ISATN), where multiple eavesdroppers (Eves) attempt to overhear the satellite signals cooperatively. The ISATN adopts an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with multiple antennas as a relay with threshold‐based decode‐and‐forward (DF) protocol. By assuming that perfect instantaneous channel state information (CSI) of the satellite‐UAV link and the statistical CSI of the UAV‐user link are available, we first propose a beamforming (BF) scheme for maximizing the achievable secrecy rate (ASR) of the considered network. Then, we derive the analytical expressions of the secrecy outage probability (SOP) and ergodic secrecy rate (ESR) of the considered system with the BF strategy under an assumption that the satellite‐UAV link undergoes the shadowed‐Rician fading, while the UAV‐user link experiences the correlated Rayleigh fading. Finally, numerical results are given to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed BF scheme against zero forcing (ZF) and maximal ratio transmission (MRT) schemes and the validity of the secrecy performance analysis.     

Analysis of heterogeneous satellite networks with multi‐user detectors

In this work, a heterogeneous network, where both terrestrial‐ and multiple spot beam‐based geosynchronous satellite networks use the same sub‐channel, is investigated. Moreover, the satellite uses same sub‐channel to serve users across all spot beams. Apart from inter spot beam interference, satellite users also receive strong interfering signal from the terrestrial base station. The satellite receivers manage the inter system interference (ie, interference from terrestrial network) while the inter spot beam interference is mitigated through precoding at the gateway. To be specific, the following interference‐aware detectors are used to mitigate the inter system interference: successive interference canceller (SIC) and joint decoder (JD). The proposed decoders are shown to achieve better data rate and bit error rate (BER) than the interference ignorant decoder at moderate to strong interference levels. Although JD and SIC achieve same sum rate at moderate and strong interference levels, JD is shown to allow the terrestrial user achieve higher data rate than SIC.     

低轨LTE卫星随机接入前导设计及检测算法研究

针对低轨卫星环境中的较广波束覆盖范围和较大多普勒频移的特点,研究了能够应用于低轨LTE（Long Term Evolution）卫星移动通信中的随机接入前导及其检测算法。首先,提出多根长序列（MRLS）,该序列通过级联多个根序列号不同的短ZC（Zadoff-Chu）根序列构建,可以支持一步定时提前估计;其次,提出一种基于MRLS的随机接入前导检测算法,该算法通过相邻短ZC根序列的共轭相乘产生多个检测序列,再与多个待检序列进行联合差分相关检测,克服了整数倍和小数倍子载波间隔的多普勒频移的影响。仿真结果表明,利用MRLS序列,所提算法对载波频率偏移具有很好的鲁棒性,适用于基于LTE的低轨卫星移动通信系统。     

Integrated load‐based power saving for real‐time and nonreal‐time traffic in LTE‐TDD

Long‐Term Evolution (LTE) is a 4G wireless broadband technology developed by the Third Generation Partnership Project. Two duplex modes, namely, frequency division duplex and time division duplex (TDD), are defined in LTE for transmission in both downlink and uplink directions simultaneously. Power saving mechanisms for LTE‐frequency division duplex were proposed in the authors' previous work. Applicability of the previously proposed mechanisms to LTE‐TDD is investigated in this paper, and the idea of “virtual time” associated with the mapping mechanism from the virtual time domain to the actual time domain for different TDD configurations is proposed. With the help of the mapping mechanism, 3 revised power saving schemes are proposed to support real‐time user equipments and nonreal‐time user equipments in LTE‐TDD. Simulation study demonstrates the effectiveness of the mapping mechanism as well as the benefit of the proposed schemes in power saving efficiency and real‐time support in comparing with the standard‐based mechanism.     

Interference‐Limited Dynamic Resource Management for an Integrated Satellite/Terrestrial System

An integrated multi‐beam satellite and multi‐cell terrestrial system is an attractive means for highly efficient communication due to the fact that the two components (satellite and terrestrial) make the most of each other's resources. In this paper, a terrestrial component reuses a satellite's resources under the control of the satellite's network management system. This allows the resource allocation for the satellite and terrestrial components to be coordinated to optimize spectral efficiency and increase overall system capacity. In such a system, the satellite resources reused in the terrestrial component may bring about severe interference, which is one of the main factors affecting system capacity. Under this consideration, the objective of this paper is to achieve an optimized resource allocation in both components in such a way as to minimize any resulting inter‐component interference. The objective of the proposed scheme is to mitigate this inter‐component interference by optimizing the total transmission power — the result of which can lead to an increase in capacity. The simulation results in this paper illustrate that the proposed scheme affords a more energy‐efficient system to be implemented, compared to a conventional power management scheme, by allocating the bandwidth uniformly regardless of the amount of interference or traffic demand.     

Theatre in the Sky: a ubiquitous broadband multimedia‐on‐demand service over a novel constellation composed of quasi‐geostationary satellites

To meet an ever‐growing demand for wideband multimedia services and electronic connectivity across the world, development of ubiquitous broadband multimedia systems is gaining a tremendous interest at both commercial and academic levels. Satellite networks will play an indispensable role in the deployment of such systems. A significant number of satellite communication constellations have been thus proposed using Geostationary (GEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), or Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. These constellations, however, either require a potential number of satellites or are unable to provide data transmission with high elevation angles. This paper proposes a new satellite constellation composed of Quasi‐GeoStationary Orbit (Quasi‐GSO) satellites. The main advantage of the constellation is in its ability to provide global coverage with a significantly small number of satellites while, at the same time, maintaining high elevation angles. Based on a combination of this Quasi‐GSO satellites constellation and terrestrial networks, the paper proposes also an architecture for building a global, large‐scale, and efficient Video‐on‐Demand (VoD) system. The entire architecture is referred to as a ‘Theatre in the Sky’. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Outage probability in Poisson‐cluster‐based LTE two‐tier femtocell networks

This paper analyzes two‐tier orthogonal frequency‐division multiplexing (OFDM)‐based cellular structure, when the traditional macrocell structure is extended with femtocells. The benefit of using femtocells is the capacity and coverage extension capability. To fulfill strict quality of service requirements in next‐generation mobile networks such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) or LTE‐Advanced, capacity and coverage enhancing becomes rather important. On the other hand, adding small cells such as femtocells next to macrocell modifies the interference pattern of the current region. Therefore, the number of small cells in a given area should be limited. In this paper, we provide an analytic framework to calculate the outage probability for a macrocell user in OFDM‐based femtocell networks when the deployed femto base stations are composing an independent Poisson cluster process such as Thomas cluster process. Cluster‐based femtocell modeling offers accurate network planning for mobile operators. In this cluster‐based realization, we give an interference characterization and consider the outage probability for a randomly deployed user when communication channel is infected with Rayleigh fading. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimized handover and resource management: an 802.21‐based scheme to optimize handover and resource management in hybrid satellite‐terrestrial networks

Satellite communications can provide fourth generation (4G) networks with large‐scale coverage. However, their integration to 4G is challenging because satellite networks have not been designed with handover in mind. The setup of satellite links takes time, and so, handovers must be anticipated long before. This paper proposes a generic scheme based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 802.21 standard to optimize handover and resource management in hybrid satellite‐terrestrial networks. Our solution, namely optimized handover and resource management (OHRM), uses the terrestrial interface to prepare handover, which greatly speeds up the establishment of the satellite link. We propose two mechanisms to minimize the waste of bandwidth due to wrong handover predictions. First, we leverage the support of 802.21 in the terrestrial access network to shorten the path of the signaling messages towards the satellite resource manager. Second, we cancel the restoration of the satellite resources when the terrestrial link rolls back. We use OHRM to interconnect a digital video broadcasting and a wireless 4G terrestrial network. However for the simulation tool, we use a WiMAX as the terrestrial technology to illustrate the schemes. The simulation results show that OHRM minimizes the handover delay and the signaling overhead in the terrestrial and satellite networks. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

非标准带宽下基于LTE的通信方法

针对部分运营商拥有LTE的非标准带宽及其快速部署LTE的需求,结合现有LTE协议的规定,分析了在非标准带宽下基于LTE标准带宽部署LTE的可行性,并对UE以标准带宽接入网络进行通信的影响和解决思路进行了理论分析和仿真说明,结果表明在不改变LTE协议基础上,仅仅通过基站侧的配置和调度,在非标准带宽条件下基于LTE进行通信是完全可行的.