[pt] Os sistemas de rádio acesso em banda larga em freqüências superiores a 20 GHz oferecem soluções de alta velocidade, vídeo, áudio e multimídia sendo, portanto, alternativas aos sistemas cabeados para acesso à última milha. Nestas faixas de freqüências, os sistemas de rádio acesso em banda larga utilizam enlaces do tipo ponto-multiponto na direção de descida e ponto-a-ponto na subida, com configurações semelhantes às encontradas nas redes celulares. Entretanto, devido as altas freqüências utilizadas, os enlaces operam apenas em visibilidade e o principal problema de propagação encontrado é a atenuação por chuvas, que afeta fortemente o nível do sinal recebido reduzindo a cobertura e o desempenho do sistema. Neste trabalho é desenvolvida uma ferramenta computacional com a finalidade de simular o cálculo de cobertura, de capacidade e da disponibilidade de sistemas de rádio acesso em banda larga utilizando os modelos de previsão de atenuação por chuvas do ITU-R e do CETUC, incluindo também efeitos de atenuação diferencial. A inclusão deste último efeito permite tratar de forma completa o problema da atenuação por chuvas em enlaces convergentes e determinar a degradação total na relação sinal-interferência do sistema. / [en] Broadband wireless access systems in frequencies above 20 GHz can provide a simple and effective solution for high speed, video, audio and multimedia service providers being an excellent alternative to cable systems for the last mile. At these frequencies bands, the broadband radio access system uses point to multipoint link in the downlink direction and point to point in the uplink. The configuration is similar to those of cellular networks. However, at these high frequencies the links are line-of- sight and the main problem is rain attenuation, that seriously affects the received signal level reducing coverage and system performance. In this work a computational tool is developed with the purpose of simula- ting coverage prediction, capacity and system availability calculations using models for rain attenuation prediction developed by ITU-R and CETUC. Also considered is the effect of differential attenuation, what allows a complete treatment of rain effects in point to multipoint links and the calculation of the total degradation in the signal to interference ratio.

Network densification has become a dominant theme for capacity enhancement in cellular networks. However, it increases the operational complexity and expenditure for mobile network operators. Consequently, the essential features of Self-Organising Networks (SON) are considered to ensure the economic viability of the emerging cellular networks. This thesis focuses on quantifying the benefits of self-organisation in Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) by proposing a flexible, energy efficient, and capacity optimised system. The Base Band Unit (BBU) and Remote Radio Head (RRH) map is formulated as an optimisation problem. A self-optimised C-RAN (SOCRAN) is proposed which hosts Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Discrete-Particle-Swarm-Optimisation algorithm (DPSO), developed for optimisation. Computational results based on different network scenarios demonstrate that DPSO delivers excellent performances for the key performance indicators compared to GA. The percentage of blocked users is reduced from 10.523% to 0.409% in a medium sized network scenario and 5.394% to 0.56% in a vast network scenario. Furthermore, an efficient resource utilisation scheme is proposed based on the concept of Cell Differentiation and Integration (CDI). The two-stage CDI scheme semi-statically scales the number of BBUs and RRHs to serve an offered load and dynamically defines the optimum BBU-RRH mapping to avoid unbalanced network scenarios. Computational results demonstrate significant throughput improvement in a CDI-enabled C-RAN compared to a fixed C-RAN, i.e., an average throughput increase of 45.53% and an average blocked users decrease of 23.149% is experienced. A power model is proposed to estimate the overall power consumption of C-RAN. Approximately 16% power reduction is calculated in a CDI-enabled C-RAN when compared to a fixed C-RAN, both serving the same geographical area. Moreover, a Divide-and-Sort load balancing scheme is proposed and compared to the SOCRAN scheme. Results show excellent performances by the Divide-and-Sort algorithm in small networks when compared to SOCRAN and K-mean clustering algorithm.

A drastic increase in traffic of mobile broadband is seen in the past few years, which is further accelerated by the increase in usage of smart phones and its applications. The availability of good smart phones and better data connectivity are encouraging mobile users to use video services. This huge increase in usage will pose a lot of challenges to the wireless networks. The wireless network has to become content aware in order to offer enhanced quality of video service through efficient utilization of the wireless spectrum. This thesis focuses on improving the Quality of Experience (QoE) for video transmission over Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks by imparting the content awareness to the system and providing unequal error protection for critical video packets. Two different schemes for the improvement of video quality delivery over LTE networks are presented in this thesis. Using content awareness, the retransmission count of Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) are changed dynamically such that the most important video frame gets more number of retransmission attempts, which increases its success for delivery in-turn increasing the received video quality. Since Radio Link Control (RLC) is the link layer for radio interface, the second approach focuses on optimizing this layer for efficient video transmission. As part of this scheme, a new operation mode called Hybrid Mode (HM) for RLC is defined. This mode performs retransmission only for the critical video frames, leaving other frames to unacknowledged transmission. The simulation results of both proposed schemes provide significant improvement in achieving good video quality without affecting the system performance.

Increasing energy consumption is a result of the rapid growth in cellular communication technologies and a massive increase in the number of mobile terminals (MTs) and communication sites. In cellular communication networks, energy efficiency (EE) and spectral efficiency (SE) are two of the most important criteria employed to evaluate the performance of networks. A compromise between these two conflicting criteria is therefore required, in order to achieve the best cellular network performance. Fractional frequency reuse (FFR), classed as either strict FFR or soft frequency reuse (SFR), is an intercell interference coordination (ICIC) technique applied to manage interference when more spectrum is used, and to enhance the EE. A conventional cellular model's downlink is designed as a reference in the presence of inter-cell interference (ICI) and a general fading environment. Energy-efficient cellular models,such as cell zooming, cooperative BSs and relaying models are designed, analysed and compared with the reference model, in order to reduce network energy consumption without degrading the SE. New mathematical models are derived herein to design a distributed antenna system (DAS), in order to enhance the system's EE and SE. DAS is designed in the presence of ICI and composite fading and shadowing with FFR. A coordinate multi-point (CoMP) technique is applied, using maximum ratio transmission (MRT) to serve the mobile terminal (MT), with all distributed antenna elements (DAEs), transmit antenna selection (TAS) being applied to select the best DAE and general selection combining (GSC) being applied to select more than one DAE. Furthermore, a Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is designed and analysed with two different schemes, using the high-power node (HPN) and a remote radio head (RRH), in order to improve the EE and SE of the system. Finally, a trade-off between the two conflicting criteria, EE and SE, is handled carefully in this thesis, in order to ensure a green cellular communication network.

Fifth Generation (5G) cellular networks will experience a thousand-fold increase in data traffic with over 100 billion connected devices by 2020. In order to support this skyrocketing traffic demand, smaller base stations (BSs) are deployed to increase capacity. However, more BSs increase energy consumption which contributes to operational expenditure (OPEX) and CO2 emissions. Also, an introduction of a plethora of 5G applications running in the mobile devices cause a significant amount of energy consumption in the mobile devices. This thesis presents a novel framework for energy efficiency in 5G cloud radio access networks (C-RAN) by leveraging cloud computing technology. Energy efficiency is achieved in three ways; (i) at the radio side of H-C-RAN (Heterogeneous C-RAN), a dynamic BS switching off algorithm is proposed to minimise energy consumption while maintaining Quality of Service (QoS), (ii) in the BS cloud, baseband workload consolidation schemes are proposed based on simulated annealing and genetic algorithms to minimise energy consumption in the cloud, where also advanced fuzzy based admission control with pre-emption is implemented to improve QoS and resource utilisation (iii) at the mobile device side, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) is used where computer intensive tasks from the mobile device are executed in the MEC server in the cloud. The simulation results show that the proposed framework effectively reduced energy consumption by up to 48% within RAN and 57% in the mobile devices, and improved network energy efficiency by a factor of 10, network throughput by a factor of 2.7 and resource utilisation by 54% while maintaining QoS.

A drastic increase in traffic of mobile broadband is seen in the past few years, which is further accelerated by the increase in usage of smart phones and its applications. The availability of good smart phones and better data connectivity are encouraging mobile users to use video services. This huge increase in usage will pose a lot of challenges to the wireless networks. The wireless network has to become content aware in order to offer enhanced quality of video service through efficient utilization of the wireless spectrum. This thesis focuses on improving the Quality of Experience (QoE) for video transmission over Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks by imparting the content awareness to the system and providing unequal error protection for critical video packets. Two different schemes for the improvement of video quality delivery over LTE networks are presented in this thesis. Using content awareness, the retransmission count of Hybrid Automatic Repeat reQuest (HARQ) are changed dynamically such that the most important video frame gets more number of retransmission attempts, which increases its success for delivery in-turn increasing the received video quality. Since Radio Link Control (RLC) is the link layer for radio interface, the second approach focuses on optimizing this layer for efficient video transmission. As part of this scheme, a new operation mode called Hybrid Mode (HM) for RLC is defined. This mode performs retransmission only for the critical video frames, leaving other frames to unacknowledged transmission. The simulation results of both proposed schemes provide significant improvement in achieving good video quality without affecting the system performance.

This master’s thesis deals with a UMTS radio access network optimization, containing radio interface analysis, services and procedures description, ways to correct parameters calculations and settings and other issues necessary for a correct access network operation. The goal is effective network operation, minimum costs and maximum performance and flexibility of the network. The optimization during system operation is important because of the system character. The UMTS system uses the WCDMA technology, where particular users share the same frequency band and they are distinguished from one another via code sequences. The capacity of such a system is then given by the interference level - each particular user increases the interference level by the value corresponding to his transmit power. The maximum cell capacity is determined by the maximum interference level at which users can still operate with required services, so it is related not only to the number of users, but also to their bit rate. The optimization allows effective usage of the system for different services with different requirements. The main optimization tool is the radio resource management, containing number of algorithms, such as admission control, which decides the acceptance or rejection of a new user demanding certain service, power control, which ensure that users transmit with a minimal power sufficient for required service, handover and cell selection algorithms etc. The major parameter used by these algorithms is a cell load factor, which is related to the interference level margin. There are several methods for the load factor estimation and some of them are described in this work. Some other optimization techniques are mentioned here, too. This work also contains a laboratory exercise proposal for radio resource management introduction using the OPNET Modeler network simulation tool.

With Ericsson’s goal to have optimal user experience at 5G’s 2020 release, it is very important to optimize transport protocols and techniques to manage the increasing amount of data traffic. Additionally, it will be important to manage handovers between very high speed 5G networks and older networks. Today most of the traffic is video on demand and the amount of this kind of traffic is expected to increase. Moreover, the current amount of data traffic will increase by an order of magnitude over the next few years. This thesis focuses on radio access networks and the difficulties they face in delivering high speed data traffic. This thesis analyzes one of the most used TCP protocols, CUBIC, as well as a new transport protocol developed by Aspera, called the Fast and Secure Protocol. Aspera’s FASP is a new transport protocol that promises full link utilization. FASP is built upon UDP and uses advanced round trip time measurements and queuing delay to detect the available bandwidth between two communicating hosts. This thesis project also provides methods to realize experiments to assess the limitations of transport protocols. These experiments are conducted in an environment that resembles the upcoming 5G radio access network. Results have shown that both delay and packet loss affect TCP more than we expected and that high packet loss is devastating. In contrast, Aspera’s FASP is very resistant to both delay and packet loss. These results and analysis provide a foundation upon which others can build. / Med Ericssons mål att ha optimal användarupplevelse vid släppet av 5G år 2020 är det oerhört viktigt att optimera transportprotokoll och tekniker för att hantera den ökande mängden datatrafik. En annan viktig aspekt kan vara att hantera överlämningar mellan 5G nätverk och äldre radionätverk. Idag är den största trafiken streamad video och prognoser visar att den sortens trafik bara kommer att öka. Prognoserna visar också att all trafik kommer att öka mångfaldigt de närmaste åren. Denna thesis kommer att fokusera på svårigheterna just inom radionätverk. Denna thesis kommer att analysera ett av vårt mest använda transportprotokoll CUBIC TCP, den kommer också att analysera ett helt nytt transportprotokoll utvecklat av Aspera, Fast and Secure Protocol. Aspera lovar fullt utnyttjande av den mellanliggande länken. FASP är byggt ovanpå UDP och använder avancerade tur- och returtidsmätningar för att använda all outnyttjad bandbredd. Denna thesis visar även hur man kan göra experiment för att hitta begränsningar i transportprotokoll. Alla dessa experiment kommer utförs i en miljö som efterliknar det nya 5G-nätverket. Resultatet visar att både förlora paket tillsammans med en hög fördröjning påverkar mycket mer än väntat och att frekvent förlora paket är förödande för TCP. Asperas FASP är i motsats mycket tålig mot både paketförlust och hög fördröjning. Detta resultat och denna analys lägger en grund var andra kan arbeta vidare.

Dans les réseaux mobiles du future, un déploiement plus dense des points d’accés radio est prévu pour satisfaire la demande accrue de débit, mais les terminaux utilisateurs peuvent être affectés par une interférence inter-cellulaire plus forte. Par chance, la centralisation des traitements de signal en bande de base dans l’achitecture Cloud RAN (C-RAN) offre la possibilité de la coordination et du traitement conjoint de plusieurs cellules. Pour réellement permettre de déployer ces techniques, une étude bout-à-bout du CRAN est nécessaire selon plusieurs aspects, notamment l’architecture fonctionnelle, la stratégie de coordination, l’implémentation du traitement de signal multiutilisateur et les optimisations possibles pour un fonctionnement plus efficace.Dans cette thèse, nous proposons en premier une architecture qui définit le placement des fonctions du traitement en bande de base entre les unités distribuées et le serveur central. Le but de ce design est de permettre la réalisation des fonctions multi-utilisateurs en transmettant avec la moins de débit possible sur les liens de fronthaul reliant les différentes entités. Dans un second temps, nous présentons comment il est possible de coordiner les différentes cellules servies par le C-RAN en utilisant le concept de réseaux définis par logiciels adapté pour les réseaux d’accès radio. Nous avons mis en place un prototype démontrant la faisabilité de la méthode de contrôle proposée. Finalement, nous étudions l’allocation adaptative du débit sur les liens de fronthaul transportant les symboles numériques quantifiés des utilisateurs en besoin de traitement multi-cellulaire sur la voie montante pour exploiter l’interférence entre eux. Nous proposons un modèle d’optimisation qui inclut le coût des transmissions fronthaul pour maximiser ainsi le gain obtenu par l’opérateur du réseau où la communication multiutilisateur a lieu. Nous réalisons l’optimisation pour différents modèles de coût et en utilisants deux types de données: d’abord les estimations de canal supposées parfaites et disponibles en temps réel, puis seulement les statistiques du canal. Nous montrons que la méthode d’optimisation proposée permet d’exploiter plus efficacement les liens de fronthaul dans l’architecture précedemment définie. / In future mobile networks denser deployment of radio access points is planned to satisfy demand of higher throughput, but an increased number of mobile users can suffer from inter-cell interference. Fortunately, the centralization of base-band processing offered by Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architecture enables coordination and joint physical layer processing between cells. To make practical deployment of these techniques possible, we have to study C-RAN in an end-to-end view regarding several aspects: the functional architecture of a deployment, the multi-cell coordination strategy, the implementation of multi-user signal processing and possibilities for optimization to increase operational efficiency.In this thesis, first, we propose an architecture defining the placement of base-band processing functions between the distributed remote units and the central processing unit. The aim of this design is to enable multi-cell processing both on the uplink and the downlink while requiring low data rate between the involved entities. Secondly, we study how low latency coordination can be realized inside the central unit using software defined networking adapted to radio access networks. Our demonstration through a real-time prototype deployment shows the feasibility of the proposed control framework. Finally, we investigate adaptive allocation of fronthaul rate that is used for transferring quantized base-band symbols for users participating in uplink multi-cell reception in order to exploit interference between them. We propose an optimization model that includes the cost of fronthaul tranmissions and aims to maximize the gain of network operators from multi-user transmissions in C-RAN. We solve the optimization problem for different fronthaul pricing models, in a scenario where real-time and accurate channel estimates are available and in another where only channel statistics are exploited. Using our method - fitting in the architecture that we have defined - cost efficiency of fronthaul usage can be significantly improved.

The convergence of mobile services and Internet has brought a radical change in mobile networks. An all IP network architecture, an evolution of the radio access transport network, is required to support new high-bandwidth services. Unfortunately, existing control mechanisms are insufficient to guarantee end users a high quality of experience. However, coordinating radio and transport network resources is expected to yield a more efficient solution. This thesis project investigates the interactions between the congestion avoidance protocols, explicit congestion notification, and the traffic engineering metrics for latency and bandwidth, when using Open Shortest Path First with traffic engineering (OSPF-TE) as a routing protocol. Using knowledge of these interactions, it is possible to identify the appearance of bottlenecks and to control the congestion in the transport links within a radio access transport network. Augmenting a topology map with the network’s current characteristics and reacting to evidence of potential congestion, further actions, such as handovers can be taken to ensure the users experience their expected quality of experience. The proposed method has been validated in a test bed. The results obtained from experiments and measurements in this test bed provide a clear picture of how the traffic flows in the network. Furthermore, the behavior of the network observed in these experiments, in terms of real-time performance and statistical analysis of metrics over a period of time, shows the efficiency of this proposed solution. / Tjänstekonvergensen av Internet- och mobila tjänster har medfört en radikal förändring i mobilnäten. En ”All IP” nätverksarkitektur, en utveckling av radios transportnät. Utvecklingen krävs för att stödja de nya bredbandiga tjänsterna. Tyvärr är befintliga kontrollmekanismer otillräckliga för att garantera användarens kvalitetsupplevelse. Med att samordna radio- och transportnätverkets resurser förväntar man sig en effektivare lösning. Detta examensarbete undersöker samspelet mellan protokoll för att undvika överlast, direkt indikation av överlast och trafikal statistik för fördröjning och bandbredd med trafikstyrning baserat på fördröjning och bandbredd , vid användning av Open Shortest Path First ( OSPF - TE ) som routingprotokoll. Med hjälp av information om dessa interaktioner, är det möjligt att identifiera uppkomsten av flaskhalsar och för att styra trafikstockningar i transportförbindelser inom ett radioaccess transportnät. En utökad topologikarta med nätverkets aktuella egenskaper kommer att reagera på en potentiell överbelastning. Ytterligare åtgärder, till exempel överlämningar, vidtas i mobilnätet för att säkerställa användarens upplevda kvalitet. Den föreslagna metoden har validerats i en testmiljö. Resultaten från experiment och mätningar i denna testmiljö ger en tydlig bild av hur trafikflödena framskrider i nätverket. Beteendet hos nätverket som observeras i dessa experiment, i termer av realtidsprestanda och statistisk analys av mätvärden över en tidsperiod, visar effektiviteten av denna föreslagna lösning.