With wireless communication technology development, the 5G New Radio (NR) has been proposed and developed for a decade. This advanced mobile communication technology has more advancements, such as higher system capacity, higher spectrum efficiency, higher data rates, and so on. In 5G, Ultra- Dense Network (UDN) is deployed for increasing the system capacity and frequency reuse to meet high application requirements. The architecture of 5G UDN is to realize the dense and flexible deployment of smaller general Node B (gNB). However, the increased capacity of applying UDN in 5G is anticipated at the cost of increased signal interference, increased handover times, and increased handover failures. The Time to Trigger (TTT) is one of the most important factors in handover frequency which is deserved to be detected. Moreover, the density of the 5G gNBs influences the handover times and performance as well. In this work, we provide a compendium of 5G handover management. A downlink system-level simulator for 5G handover is built and utilized to evaluate the effect of different TTT values and densities of gNBs on the 5G handover. In addition, different velocities of Traffic Users (TUs) have been applied to the simulation system. From the simulation results, the handover performance has been analyzed and optimized by applying adjustable TTT under different densities of gNBs which will help people have a better understanding of the selection and effect of proper TTT, UDN, and different velocities of TUs on 5G handover performance.
Dense femtocells are the ultimate goal of the femtocellular network deployment. Among three types of handovers: femtocell-to-macrocell, macrocell-to-femtocell, and femtocell-to-femtocell, the latter two are the main concern for the dense femtocellular network deployment. For these handover cases, minimum as well appropriate neighbor cell list is the key element for the successful handover. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to make minimum but appropriate number of neighbor femtocell list for the femtocell-to-femtocell handover. Our algorithm considers received signal level from femto APs …
The user-centric cooperative transmission provides a compelling way to alleviate frequent handovers caused by an ever-increasing number of randomly deployed base stations (BSs) in ultra-dense networks (UDNs). This paper proposes a new user-centric cooperative transmissions-based handover scheme, i.e., the group-cell handover (GCHO) scheme, with the aim of reducing the handover rate in UDNs. In the proposed scheme, the boundary of the cooperating cluster depends on the distance among the user equipment (UE) and cooperating BSs. The new scheme captures the dynamicity and irregularity of the coop…
For dense femtocells, intelligent integrated femtocell/macrocell network architecture, a neighbor cell list with a minimum number of femtocells, effective call admission control (CAC), and handover processes with proper signaling are the open research issues. An appropriate traffic model for the integrated femtocell/macrocell network is also not yet developed. In this paper, we present the major issue of mobility management for the integrated femtocell/macrocell network. We propose a novel algorithm to create a neighbor cell list with a minimum, but appropriate, number of cells for handover. W…
Cellular operators are continuously densifying their networks to cope with the ever-increasing capacity demand. Furthermore, an extreme densification phase for cellular networks is foreseen to fulfill the ambitious fifth generation (5G) performance requirements. Network densification improves spectrum utilization and network capacity by shrinking base stations' (BSs) footprints and reusing the same spectrum more frequently over the spatial domain. However, network densification also increases the handover (HO) rate, which may diminish the capacity gains for mobile users due to HO delays. In hi…
Ultra-dense network deployment has been proposed as a key technique for achieving capacity goals in the fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication system. However, the deployment of smaller cells inevitably leads to more frequent handovers, thus making mobility management more challenging and reducing the capacity gains offered by the dense network deployment. In order to fully reap the gains for mobile users in such a network environment, we propose an intelligent dual connectivity mechanism for mobility management through deep learning-based mobility prediction. We first use LSTM (Long Short…
Mobile users in an ultra-dense millimeter-wave cellular network experience handover events more frequently than in conventional networks, which results in increased service interruption time and performance degradation due to blockages. Multi-connectivity has been proposed to resolve this, and it also extends the coverage of millimeter-wave communications. In this paper, we propose a dual-connection based handover scheme for mobile UEs in an environment where they are connected simultaneously with two millimeter-wave cells to overcome frequent handover problems. This scheme allows a mobile UE …
In 5G wireless communication, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and automobile applications, such as autonomous driving, are widely examined. These applications have strict requirements and often require high Quality of Service (QoS). In an urban setting, Ultra-Dense Networks (UDNs) have the potential to not only provide optimal QoS but also increase system capacity and frequency reuse. However, the current architecture of 5G UDN of dense Small Cell Nodes (SCNs) deployment prompts increased delay, handover times, and handover failures. In this paper, we propose a Machine Learning (ML) s…
Ultra-dense networks (UDNs) envision the massive deployment of heterogenous base stations (BSs) to meet the desired traffic demands. Furthermore, UDNs are expected to support the diverse devices e.g., personal mobile devices and unmanned ariel vehicles. User mobility and the resulting excessive changes in user to BS associations in such highly dense networks may however nullify the capacity gains foreseen through BS densification. Thus there exists a need to quantify the effect of user mobility in UDNs. In this article, we consider a three-dimensional N-tier downlink network and determine the …
With the ever-growing communication demands and the unceasing miniaturization of mobile devices, the Internet of Things is expanding the amount of mobile terminals to an enormous level. To deal with such numbers of communication data, plenty of base stations (BSs) need to be deployed. However, denser deployments of heterogeneous networks (HetNets) lead to more frequent handovers, which could increase network burden and degrade the users experience, especially in traffic hotspot areas. In this paper, we develop a unified framework to investigate the handover performance of wireless networks wit…
Dense Networks (DenseNet) and Multi-Radio Access Technologies (Multi-RATs) are considered as key features of the emerging fifth generation (5G) wireless systems. A Multi-RAT DenseNet is characterized by a very dense deployment of low-power base stations (BSs) and by a multi-tier architecture consisting of heterogeneous radio access technologies. Such a network aims to guarantee high data-rates, low latency and low energy consumption. Although the usage of a Multi RAT DenseNet solves problems such as coverage holes and low performance at the cell edge, frequent and unnecessary RAT handovers may…
Network densification is one of key technologies in future networks to significantly increase network capacity. The gain obtained by network densification for fixed terminals have been studied and proved. However for mobility users, there are a number of issues, such as more frequent handover, packet loss due to high mobility, interference management and so on. The conventional solutions are to handover high speed mobiles to macro base stations or multicast traffic to multiple base stations. These solutions fail to exploit the capacity of dense networks and overuse the backhaul capacity. In th…
Network densification is found to be a potential solution to meet 5G capacity standards. Network densification offers more capacity by shrinking base stations' (BSs) footprints, thus reduces the number of users served by each BS. However, the gains in the capacity are achieved at the expense of increased handover (HO) rates. Hence, HO rate is a key performance limiting factor that should be carefully considered in densification planning. This paper sheds light on the HO problem that appears in dense 5G networks and proposes an effective solution via topology aware HO skipping. Different skippi…
Future wireless networks must serve dense mobile networks with high data rates, keeping energy requirements to a possible minimum. The small cell-based network architecture and device-to-device (D2D) communication are already being considered part of 5G networks and beyond. In such environments, network coding (NC) can be employed to achieve both higher throughput and energy efficiency. However, NC-enabled systems need to address security challenges specific to NC, such as pollution attacks. All integrity schemes against pollution attacks generally require proper key distribution and managemen…
Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks (SatNets) are envisioned to play a crucial role in providing global and ubiquitous connectivity efficiently. Accordingly, in the coming years, thousands of LEO satellites will be launched to create ultradense LEO mega-constellations, and the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is working on evolving fifth-generation (5G) systems to support such non-terrestrial networks (NTN). However, many challenges are associated with the deployment of LEOs from communications and networking perspectives. In this paper, we propose a novel cell-free massive mul…
Future cellular networks will be dense and require key traffic management technologies for fine-grained network control. The problem gets more complicated in the presence of different network segments with bottleneck links limiting the desired quality of service (QoS) delivery to the last mile user. In this work, we first design a framework for software-defined cellular networks (SDCN) and then propose new mechanisms for management of QoS and non-QoS users traffic considering both access and backhaul networks, jointly. The overall SDN-LTE system and related approaches are developed and tested …
Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is considered as a key enabler of ultra-high data rates in the future cellular and wireless networks. The need for directional communication between base stations (BSs) and users in mmWave systems, that is achieved through beamforming, increases the complexity of the channel estimation. Moreover, in order to provide better coverage, dense deployment of BSs is required which causes frequent handovers and increased association overhead. In this paper, we present an approach that jointly addresses the beamforming and handover problems. Our solution entails a…
While network densification is considered an important solution to cater the ever-increasing capacity demand, its effect on the handover (HO) rate is overlooked. In dense 5G networks, HO delays may neutralize or even negate the gains offered by network densification. Hence, user mobility imposes a nontrivial challenge to harvest capacity gains via network densification. In this paper, we propose a velocity-aware HO management scheme for two-tier downlink cellular network to mitigate the HO effect on the foreseen densification throughput gains. The proposed HO scheme sacrifices the best BS conn…
Device mobility in dense Wi-Fi networks offers several challenges. Two well-known problems related to device mobility are handover prediction and access point selection. Due to the complex nature of the radio environment, analytical models may not characterize the wireless channel, which makes the solution of these problems very difficult. Recently, cognitive network architectures using sophisticated learning techniques are increasingly being applied to such problems. In this paper, we propose data-driven machine learning (ML) schemes to efficiently solve these problems in wireless LAN (WLAN) …
Energy efficient mobility management is an important problem in modern wireless networks with heterogeneous cell sizes and increased nodes densities. We show that optimization-based mobility protocols cannot achieve long-term optimal energy consumption, particularly for ultra-dense networks (UDN). To address the complex dynamics of UDN, we propose a non-stochastic online-learning approach which does not make any assumption on the statistical behavior of the small base station (SBS) activities. In addition, we introduce handover cost to the overall energy consumption, which forces the resulting…
MmWave communications are expected to play a major role in the Fifth generation of mobile networks. They offer a potential multi-gigabit throughput and an ultra-low radio latency, but at the same time suffer from high isotropic pathloss, and a coverage area much smaller than the one of LTE macrocells. In order to address these issues, highly directional beamforming and a very high-density deployment of mmWave base stations were proposed. This Thesis aims to improve the reliability and performance of the 5G network by studying its tight and seamless integration with the current LTE cellular net…
As cellular networks become denser, a scalable and dynamic tuning of wireless base station parameters can only be achieved through automated optimization. Although the contextual bandit framework arises as a natural candidate for such a task, its extension to a parallel setting is not straightforward: one needs to carefully adapt existing methods to fully leverage the multi-agent structure of this problem. We propose two approaches: one derived from a deterministic UCB-like method and the other relying on Thompson sampling. Thanks to its bayesian nature, the latter is intuited to better preser…
While scalable cell-free massive MIMO (CF-mMIMO) shows advantages in static conditions, the impact of its changing serving access point (AP) set in a mobile network is not yet addressed. In this paper we first derive the CPU cluster and AP handover rates of scalable CF-mMIMO as exact numerical results and tight closed form approximations. We then use our closed form handover rate result to analyse the mobility-aware throughput. We compare the mobility-aware spectral efficiency (SE) of scalable CF-mMIMO against distributed MIMO with pure network- and UE-centric AP selection, for different AP de…
The upsurge in wireless devices and real-time service demands force the move to a higher frequency spectrum. Millimetre-wave (mmWave) and terahertz (THz) bands combined with the beamforming technology offer significant performance enhancements for ultra-dense networks (UDNs). Unfortunately, shrinking cell coverage and severe penetration loss experienced at higher spectrum render mobility management a critical issue in UDNs, especially optimizing beam blockages and frequent handover (HO). Mobility management challenges have become prevalent in city centres and urban areas. To address this, we p…
The massive exploitation of robots for industry 4.0 needs advanced wireless solutions that replace less flexible and more costly wired networks. In this regard, millimeter-waves (mm-waves) can provide high data rates, but they are characterized by a spotty coverage requiring dense radio deployments. In such scenarios, coverage holes and numerous handovers may decrease the communication throughput and reliability. In contrast to conventional multi-robot path planning (MPP), we define a type of multi-robot association-path planning (MAPP) problems aiming to jointly optimize the robots' paths and…
In ultra-dense millimeter wave (mmWave) networks, mmWave signals suffer from severe path losses and are easily blocked by obstacles. Meanwhile, ultra-dense deployment causes excessive handovers, which reduces the data link reliability. To alleviate the above issues, the novel technology, known as multi-connectivity enabled user association (MCUA) is incorporated in this letter. We aim to jointly optimize MCUAs and downlink (DL) power allocations (PAs) to maximize the DL rate of each user simultaneously, rather than total. This is a non-convex nonlinear 0-1 mixed integer multi-objective optimiz…
Various system tasks like interference coordination, handover decisions, admission control etc. in current cellular networks require precise mid-term (spanning over a few seconds) performance models. Due to channel-dependent scheduling at the base station, these performance models are not simple to obtain. Furthermore, LTE cellular systems are interference-limited, hence, the way interference is modelled is crucial for the accuracy. In this paper we present a closed-form analytical performance model for proportional fair scheduling in OFDMA/LTE networks. The model takes into account a precise …
Handover (HO) management is one of the most crucial tasks in dense cellular networks with mobile users. A problem in the HO management is to deal with increasing HOs due to network densification in the 5G evolution and various HO skipping techniques have so far been studied in the literature to suppress excessive HOs. In this paper, we propose yet another HO skipping scheme, called periodic HO skipping. The proposed scheme prohibits the HOs of a mobile user equipment (UE) for a certain period of time, referred to as skipping period, thereby enabling flexible operation of the HO skipping by adj…
Traditional ultra-dense wireless networks are recommended as a complement for cellular networks and are deployed in partial areas, such as hotspot and indoor scenarios. Based on the massive multiple-input multi-output (MIMO) antennas and the millimeter wavecommunication technologies, the 5G ultra-dense cellular network is proposed to deploy in overall cellular scenarios. Moreover, a distribution network architecture is presented for 5G ultra-dense cellular networks. Furthermore, the backhaul network capacity and the backhaul energy efficiency of ultra-dense cellular networks are investigated t…
Creating a secure environment for communications is becoming a significantly challenging task in 5G Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) given the stringent latency and high capacity requirements of 5G networks. This is particularly factual knowing that the infrastructure tends to be highly diversified especially with the continuous deployment of small cells. In fact, frequent handovers in these cells introduce unnecessarily recurring authentications leading to increased latency. In this paper, we propose a software-defined wireless network (SDWN)-enabled fast cross-authentication scheme which com…
Heterogeneous ultra-dense networks enable ultra-high data rates and ultra-low latency through the use of dense sub-6 GHz and millimeter wave (mmWave) small cells with different antenna configurations. Existing work has widely studied spectral and energy efficiency in such networks and shown that high spectral and energy efficiency can be achieved. This article investigates the benefits of heterogeneous ultra-dense network architecture from the perspectives of three promising technologies, i.e., physical layer security, caching, and wireless energy harvesting, and provides enthusiastic outlook …
The ultra-dense deployment of interconnected satellites will characterize future low Earth orbit (LEO) mega-constellations. Exploiting this towards a more efficient satellite network (SatNet), this paper proposes a novel LEO SatNet architecture based on distributed massive multiple-input multiple-output (DM-MIMO) technology allowing ground user terminals to be connected to a cluster of satellites. To this end, we investigate various aspects of DM-MIMO-based satellite network design, the benefits of using this architecture, the associated challenges, and the potential solutions. In addition, we…
Wireless networks are becoming extremely pervasive while traffic demand is ever increasing. In order to cope with the forecast increase in traffic volume for the upcoming years, as well as the number of connected devices, new technologies, practices and spectrum rearrangements are required. In this context, a key question arises: how to provide extensive backhaul connectivity and capacity for pervasive ultra dense networks? The answer is rather complex, if feasible. To shed some light into this issue we overview potential technologies, either wired or wireless, and identify technical challenge…
Due to the exponentially increased demands of mobile data traffic, e.g., a 1000-fold increase in traffic demand from 4G to 5G, network densification is considered as a key mechanism in the evolution of cellular networks, and ultra-dense heterogeneous network (UDHN) is a promising technique to meet the requirements of explosive data traffic in 5G networks. In the UDHN, base station is brought closer and closer to users through densely deploying small cells, which would result in extremely high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency. In this article, we first present a potential network archi…
With the advantages of Millimeter wave in wireless communication network, the coverage radius and inter-site distance can be further reduced, the ultra dense network (UDN) becomes the mainstream of future networks. The main challenge faced by UDN is the serious inter-site interference, which needs to be carefully addressed by joint user association and resource allocation methods. In this paper, we propose a multi-agent Q-learning based method to jointly optimize the user association and resource allocation in UDN. The deep Q-network is applied to guarantee the convergence of the proposed meth…
By means of network densification, ultra dense networks (UDNs) can efficiently broaden the network coverage and enhance the system throughput. In parallel, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) communications and networking have attracted increasing attention recently due to their high agility and numerous applications. In this article, we present a vision of UAV-supported UDNs. Firstly, we present four representative scenarios to show the broad applications of UAV-supported UDNs in communications, caching and energy transfer. Then, we highlight the efficient power control in UAV-supported UDNs by d…
In ultra-dense LEO satellite networks, conventional communication-oriented beam pattern design cannot provide multiple favorable signals from different satellites simultaneously, and thus leads to poor positioning performance. To tackle this issue, in this paper, we propose a novel cooperative beam hopping (BH) framework to adaptively tune beam layouts suitable for multi-satellite coordinated positioning. On this basis, a joint user association, BH design and power allocation optimization problem is formulated to minimize average Cramér-Rao lower bound (CRLB). An efficient flexible BH control …
Ultra-low latency communication for mobile machines emerges as a critical technology in Internet of Things (IoT). Proactive network association has been suggested to support ultra-low latency communication with the assistance of mobile edge computing. To resolve system dynamics and uncertainty, in this paper, an online proactive network association is proposed to minimize average task delay while considering time-average energy consumption constraints. Under distributed computing and networking environments, we formulate an event-triggered proactive network association model by semi-Markov tas…
User distribution in ultra-dense networks (UDNs) plays a crucial role in affecting the performance of UDNs due to the essential coupling between the traffic and the service provided by the networks. Existing studies are mostly based on the assumption that users are uniformly distributed in space. The non-uniform user distribution has not been widely considered despite that it is much closer to the real scenario. In this paper, Radiation and Absorbing model (R&A model) is first adopted to analyze the impact of the non-uniformly distributed users on the performance of 5G UDNs. Based on the R&A m…
In ultra-dense networks (UDNs), distributed radio access points (RAPs) are configured into small virtual cells around mobile users for fair and high-throughput services. In this correspondence, we evaluate the performance of user-centric joint transmission (JT) in a UDN with a number of virtual cells. In contrast to existing cooperation schemes, which assume constant RAP transmit power, we consider a total transmit power constraint for each user, and assume that the total power is optimally allocated to the RAPs in each virtual cell using maximum ratio transmission (MRT). Based on stochastic g…
In this paper, we propose a terrestrial-satellite network (TSN) architecture to integrate the ultra-dense low earth orbit (LEO) networks and the terrestrial networks to achieve efficient data offloading. In TSN, each ground user can access the network over C-band via a macro cell, a traditional small cell, or a LEO-backhauled small cell (LSC). Each LSC is then scheduled to upload the received data via multiple satellites over Ka-band. We aim to maximize the sum data rate and the number of accessed users while satisfying the varying backhaul capacity constraints jointly determined by the LEO sa…
The exponential rise in mobile traffic originating from mobile devices highlights the need for making mobility management in future networks even more efficient and seamless than ever before. Ultra-Dense Cellular Network vision consisting of cells of varying sizes with conventional and mmWave bands is being perceived as the panacea for the eminent capacity crunch. However, mobility challenges in an ultra-dense heterogeneous network with motley of high frequency and mmWave band cells will be unprecedented due to plurality of handover instances, and the resulting signaling overhead and data inte…
This article investigates the mobility management of an ultra dense cellular network (UDN) from an energy-efficiency (EE) point of view. Many dormant base stations (BSs) in a UDN do not transmit signals, and thus a received power based handover (HO) approach as in traditional cellular networks is hardly applicable. In addition, the limited front/backhaul capacity compared to a huge number of BSs makes it difficult to implement a centralized HO and power control. For these reasons, a novel user-centric association rule is proposed, which jointly optimizes HO and power control for maximizing EE.…
Merging mobile edge computing (MEC) functionality with the dense deployment of base stations (BSs) provides enormous benefits such as a real proximity, low latency access to computing resources. However, the envisioned integration creates many new challenges, among which mobility management (MM) is a critical one. Simply applying existing radio access oriented MM schemes leads to poor performance mainly due to the co-provisioning of radio access and computing services of the MEC-enabled BSs. In this paper, we develop a novel user-centric energy-aware mobility management (EMM) scheme, in order …
Ultra network densification is considered a major trend in the evolution of cellular networks, due to its ability to bring the network closer to the user side and reuse resources to the maximum extent. In this paper we explore spatial resources coordination as a key empowering technology for next generation (5G) ultra-dense networks. We propose an optimization framework for flexibly associating system users with a densely deployed network of access nodes, opting for the exploitation of densification and the control of overhead signaling. Combined with spatial precoding processing strategies, w…
The ultra-dense small cell networks (SCNs) have been regarded as a promising technology to solve the data traffic explosion in future. However, the complicated relationships among large scale users and cells practically demand a cooperative grouping mechanism to account for the shortage of resources in SCNs. Then, a group buying market mechanism provides a win-win situation and an effective resource allocation in the view of economics. With additional decision information being provided, the context awareness enhances and improves the group buying mechanism. In this article, we propose a Conte…
In order to cope with the forecasted 1000x increase in wireless capacity demands by 2030, network operators will aggressively densify their network infrastructure to reuse the spectrum as much as possible. However, it is important to realise that these new ultra-dense small cell networks are fundamentally different from the traditional macrocell or sparse small cell networks, and thus ultra-dense networks (UDNs) cannot be deployed and operated in the same way as in the last 25 years. In this paper, we systematically investigate and visualise the performance impacts of several fundamental chara…
Meeting the diverse delay requirements of emerging wireless applications is one of the most critical goals for the design of ultradense networks. Though the delay of point-to-point communications has been well investigated using classical queueing theory, the delay of multi-point to multi-point communications, such as in ultradense networks, has not been explored in depth. The main technical difficulty lies in the interacting queues problem, in which the service rate is coupled with the statuses of other queues. In this article, we elaborate on the main challenges in the delay analysis in ultr…
