Towards the fulfillment of 5G network requirements: technologies and challenges

Future 5G networks are expected to have the capabilities of providing extremely high data rates, seamless coverage, massive number of connected devices, low latency, etc., in order to support the internet of things era. The dynamic performance of 5G networks is a key feature for controlling the dense and rapidly changing communication environment. Technical issues such as limited frequency resources, interference, energy consumption, and network management are the main challenges facing 5G networks. This article presents a comprehensive study of 5G networks architecture, technologies, challenges, and possible solutions based on recent advances in technology and research.     

On the Performance of a Constellation-rotated Time-spreaded Space-frequency Coding Scheme for 4 × 1 MISO OFDM Transceivers

In this article, we propose a time-spreaded quasi-orthogonal space-frequency coded OFDM system with constellation rotation. A constellation rotated quasi-orthogonal OFDM system could offer full rate and full diversity in a frequency selective fading channel. Time spreading can give additional time diversity gain in a fast fading channel. Assuming that complex channel gains between adjacent subcarriers are approximately equal, we develop a coding scheme for 4 × 1 MISO transceiver and its BER performance is evaluated for different Doppler frequencies in an OFDM system. The simulation results show that 2 dB gain can be achieved at BER of 10⁻³ using the proposed scheme compared to a scheme without time spreading and constellation rotation when 512 subcarriers are used at maximum Doppler frequency of 300 Hz. Also, the proposed system is analyzed for different delay spread of the channel and the results show that if adjacent subcarriers are correlated, it is better in SF-OFDM decoding.     

Mesh adaptive direct search approach for D2D resource management

Device‐to‐device (D2D) communications are being considered a way forward to achieve higher data rate targets for futuristic wireless networks. D2D introduces interference among cellular users and D2D users. A joint resource allocation (JRA) strategy in cellular network with D2D functionality can definitely enhance overall data rate. The strategy under consideration maximizes the overall data rate of cellular network besides meeting threshold of power and interference constraints. The JRA is a class of mixed integer non‐linear constraint optimization problems and is NP hard. Because of discrete nature of variables in the problem, optimal solution performs extensive search of integer variables, and problem becomes exponentially complex with the increasing number of user pairs. In this paper, mesh adaptive direct search algorithm is applied to solve the aforementioned problem. The algorithm is suitable for complex problems of combinatorial nature to solve the JRA strategy in D2D. The proposed algorithm converges to optimal solution within acceptable computational iterations. Simulation results of system capacity and interference also demonstrate the suitability of the proposed approach viz‐a‐viz other algorithms. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Channel based Fair Scheduling Scheme for Downlink Data Transmission in TD-CDMA Networks

High speed data transmission in wireless networks demands better radio resource management schemes. A fair packet scheduling is proposed for downlinks of a cellular TD-CDMA system for delay-tolerant applications. It is based on the combined consideration of channel conditions, required throughput and achieved average throughput. A system dependent parameter is introduced to control the maximum achievable date rate as well as the degree of fairness. Through analysis and simulation, we study the tradeoff between system throughout (i.e., efficiency) and individual throughput (i.e., fairness). The relative performance between the proposed scheme and the traditional schemes is evaluated through simulation to confirm the analytical observations. The sensitivity of the system tolerance factor towards efficiency and fairness is also investigated.

An analytical study of resource division and its impact on power and performance of multi-core processors

The study and development of chip multi-processors (CMPs) are of utmost importance for the creation of future technologies. Devising a theoretical analysis of the micro-architecture model for the power/performance on CMPs is still a challenge. This paper addresses this problem by (1) introducing an analytical model for measuring the power and performance of a processor quantitatively, (2) analyzing the effects of resource division on power consumption and performance when executing a given benchmark, and (3) predicting the optimum number of cores to run the benchmark on. Our proposed analytically derived results show that in order to achieve power/performance gains, the optimum number of cores must be between 8 and 16.     

Performance of Energy-Efficient Cooperative MAC Protocol with Power Backoff in MANETs

This paper presents an energy-efficient cooperative MAC (EECO-MAC) protocol using power control in mobile ad hoc networks. Cooperative communications improve network performance by taking full advantage of the broadcast nature of wireless channels. The power control technique improves the network lifetime by adjusting the transmission power dynamically. We propose the best partnership selection algorithm, which takes energy consumption into consideration for selection of the optimal cooperative helper to join in the transmission. Through exchanging control packets, the optimal transmission power is allocated for senders to transmit data packets to receivers. In order to enhance energy saving, space–time backoff and time–space backoff algorithms are proposed. Simulation results show that EECO-MAC consumes less energy and prolongs the network lifetime compared to IEEE 802.11 DCF and CoopMAC at the cost of delay. Performance improvement offered by our proposed protocol is apparent in congested networks where nodes have low and limited energy.     

Sensitivity of SWAN QoS model in MANETs with proactive and reactive routing: a simulation study

In this article, one of the QoS models for MANETs—SWAN is studied under varying conditions to provide both quantitative and qualitative assessments of the applicability of the model in different scenarios. Results and analysis from NS-2 based simulation indicate that (i) real-time (RT) applications in SWAN-enabled mobile ad hoc networks experience low and stable delays under various traffic and mobility environment at the expense of best-effort (BE) traffic, (ii) SWAN model works compatibly with proactive as well as reactive routing protocols, and (iii) a careful choice of SWAN AIMD parameters is important to balance the throughput of the BE traffic and RT traffic and QoS provisions in MANETs.     

An ant-swarm inspired dynamic multiresolution data dissemination protocol for wireless sensor networks

One of the main concerns of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is to deliver useful information from data sources to users at a minimum power consumption due to constraints that sensor nodes must operate on limited power sources for extended time. In particular, achieving power-efficiency and multihop communication in WSN applications is a major issue. This paper continues on the investigation of a recently proposed Minimum-power Multiresolution Data Dissemination (MMDD) problem for WSNs (whose solution is considered here as a benchmark). We propose an ant-inspired solution to this problem. To the best of our knowledge, no attempts have been made so far in this direction. We have evaluated the performance of our proposed solution by conducting a variety of experiments and have found our solution to be promising in terms of total energy consumption in data dissemination.     

A Survey of Distributed Relay Selection Schemes in Cooperative Wireless Ad hoc Networks

Cooperative communication aims to achieve spatial diversity gain via the cooperation of user terminals in transmission without requiring multiple transceiver antennas on the same node. It employs one or more terminals as relays in the neighbourhood of the transmitter and the receiver, which collaborate in the transmission and serve as a virtual MIMO antenna array. Allowing cooperation in wireless communication engenders new problems related to resource allocation and relay selection. Optimal relay selection is vital for reaping the performance benefit of cooperative communication. It is a challenging task to share channel information in timely and distributed manner and at the same time make optimal selection of relay in a time varying radio environment. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of distributed relay selection schemes for cooperative communication that have been proposed in the literature. We discuss various classifications of relay selection schemes and describe their characteristics and functionality. We then present a qualitative comparison of their performance against a set of representative metrics. Finally, we discuss some of their shortcomings and suggest some research directions.     

A Coordinated Location-dependent Downlink Scheduling Scheme in Cellular TD-CDMA Networks with Partitioned Cells: A Two-Cell Two-Partition Case

A downlink networkwide opportunity scheduling scheme, called coordinated location-dependent downlink scheduling scheme (CLDSS), that combines the intracell power allocation and intercell transmission coordination is proposed for cellular TD-CDMA networks. Each cell in the network is partitioned into co-centric areas based on the load distribution, and the transmission from base stations is controlled based on the intracell load as well as coordinated to minimize intercell interference. The performance in terms of average throughput employing the CLDSS is analyzed for a 2-cell system in shadow fading environment with two partitioned areas in each cell—which provides an upper bound on the cellular system performance. Monte Carlo simulation study is also done to validate the numerical results obtained from the analytical study. It is shown that CLDSS scheme can provide soft throughput, i.e., the average throughput remains relatively invariant with the number of users and also can provide better performance in the non-uniform user distribution within a cell when compared to non-CLDSS schemes.