Monday, September 10, 16.00 – 17.30
PROPONENTS
- Sana Salous , Durham University, UK
- Marina Barbiroli, University of Bologna, Italy
CHAIRS
- Sana Salous , Durham University, UK
- Marina Barbiroli, University of Bologna, Italy
SCOPE
The growth of commercial wireless broadband services, including smart phones, tablet and computers, the increase in scientific and governmental operations using radio frequency, and IoT wireless solutions have greatly boosted the demand for spectrum. At the same time, the economic value of spectrum has increased more than 25% in the last year. However, since the amount of spectrum is limited, there is concern about ensuring adequate access to an ever increasing number of concurring services and applications. In this respect, the usage of high-frequency bands, such as the well known mm-waves, shows a high potential and is envisaged to help meeting future spectrum needs in a timely manner, also enabling the full transition of mobile system to 5G.
A number of recent studies and researches, which rely also on trials and experiments across the world, including recent 5G pilots, have considerably progressed knowledge for the development of novel spectrum management paradigms. Innovative reference models have been set up to show how spectrum can be fully utilized and wireless networks can be rapidly and fruitfully deployed, maximizing spectrum efficiency, creating new opportunities for sharing and ensuring a higher degree of flexibility.
Monday, September 10, 16.00 – 17.30
PROPONENTS
- Leila Musavian, University of Essex, UK
- Muhammad Ali Imran, University of Glasgow, UK
- Shahid Mumtaz, Instituto de Telecomunicações Aveiro, Portugal
- Haris Pervaiz, 5GIC, University of Surrey, UK
CHAIR
- Leila Musavian, University of Essex, UK
SCOPE
It is expected that there will be an expansion of traffic volume due to the increased number of connected devices, i.e., 50 billion internet-connected devices by the year 2020. The fifth generation (5G) wireless communication networks is currently attracting extensive research interest from both industry and academia. It is widely agreed that in contrast to 4G, 5G should achieve 1000 times the system capacity, 10 times the spectral efficiency, higher data rates (i.e., the peak data rate of 10 Gb/s and the user experienced rate of 1Gb/s), 25 times the average cell throughput, 5 times reduction in E2E latency and 100 times connectivity density. Meanwhile, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has classified 5G services into enhanced mobile broadband (MB), ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) and massive machine type communications (MTC) with a high variability of their performance attributes. The Exabyte flood is further complemented with the challenge of provisioning robust and reliable interconnectivity for machine type communications. The demand for such machine type communication is fueled through the emerging need of all-connected society to derive innovative transformations across various vertical sectors.
The next generation networks aims to combine several unique technological solutions such as: Higher frequency communications (mmWave), Massive MIMO systems, device/user and content centric communication, M2M communication, energy harvesting and wireless power transfer, cooperative communications and network coding. These underline key targets can be achieved via appropriate combination of these technological ingredients. These emerging areas brings the promise of enabling flexible, scalable, highly configurable and reliable network functions and complete solutions for future 5G mobile networks. However, although these enabling technologies can support massive peak data rates, delivering these data rates for end-to-end services while maintaining reliability and ultra-low-latency performance to support emerging applications and use cases will require rethinking all layers of the protocol stack as outlined in the recent activities of 3GPP.
Monday, September 10, 16.00 – 17.30
PROPONENTS
- Marco Martalò, University of Parma, Italy
- Gianluigi Ferrari, University of Parma, Italy
CHAIR
- Marco Martalò, University of Parma, Italy
SCOPE
Recent advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) have shown that billions of plenty-of-sensor devices are expected to be distributed in the surrounding environment. A large variety of IoT-based applications exploiting such sensors in indoor environments may benefit from location-aware information, e.g., intrusion detection and tracking, safety in working environments, entertainment, etc. Neverthless, the rapid explosion of the smartphone market has opened the possibilty of using an increasing number of sensors to geolocalize users in indoor environments.
In this context, solutions based on the use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) are uneffective. In fact, GPS-based localization may be inaccurate due to strongly faded (or totally absent) wireless signals in indoor scenarios or can lead to a huge energy consumption which may be unfeasible for battery-powered devices. Therefore, this special session gathers contributions, both theoretical and describing IoT-based testbeds, related to recent advances in the design of navigation systems for people and objects operating in indoor environments and coping with typical issues of these scenarios.
Tuesday, September 11, 14.00 – 15.30
PROPONENT
- Chiara Buratti, University of Bologna, Italy
CHAIR
- Chiara Buratti, University of Bologna, Italy
SCOPE
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, are expected to become an integral part of our daily life as the tendency is to make UAVs increasingly smaller, cheaper and smarter. Nowadays, UAVs have been mostly adopted for outdoor applications in rural and mountains areas, as for precision agriculture, surveillance or for emergency events.
UAVs can be regarded as terminal devices connected in the ubiquitous network, where possibly other UAVs are flying, communicating and are controlled in real-time possibly beyond line-of-sight. Connectivity to UAVs can be provided via 5G or other Internet of Things (IoT) technologies (Internet of UAVs).
More recently, they have been proposed as Flying Base Stations for future wireless networks. Indeed, 5G networks, will be characterised by a massive density of nodes, requiring an high degree of network flexibility much higher than in the past. This can be achieved by mounting base stations over UAVs and letting them fly when and where it is needed, helping the terrestrial base stations and improving coverage and capacity.
This Special Session solicits the submission of high-quality and unpublished papers that aim to solve open technical problems and challenges typical of future wireless communications for UAVs considering both, UAVs as terminal of the IoT and base stations of the mobile radio networks. Theoretical and experimental studies are encouraged. This Special Session is organized in the framework of the COST Action CA15104, IRACON, and in particular by the Experimental Working Group on Internet of Things, having a specific interest in UAV-aided wireless networks for beyond 5G networks.
Tuesday, September 11, 14.00 – 15.30
PROPONENTS
- Claudia Carciofi, Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, Italy
- Samuela Persia, Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, Italy
- Simona Valbonesi, Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, Italy
CHAIR
- Claudia Carciofi, Ugo Bordoni Foundation, Italy
SCOPE
As the next generation of mobile communications technologies (‘5G’) is being developed, regulators are once again faced with new challenges posed by the innovative 5G radio access networks, including EMF exposure and the related health effects. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has recently started addressing the regulatory issues on EMF exposure in 5G networks. Moreover, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is currently working on exposure assessment methods for TDD systems and massive MIMO smart antennas.
Current legislations on EMF exposure limits are based on the received value of non-ionising radiation due to radio frequency emissions. The methodology to calculate the received exposure is based on the assumption of a predictable radiation pattern from the transmitting antenna. The active antennas in the 5G mobile networks will be very different from those in the current 4G systems. They will direct radio waves towards the users through focussed beams rather than emitting with a fixed radiation pattern over a wide angular spread. It means that the assumptions used in current models and numerical simulations to assess the electromagnetic exposure could be not suitable for 5G systems.
Tuesday, September 11, 14.00 – 15.30
PROPONENTS
- Hongyang Chen, Fujitsu Labs Ltd, Japan
- Chunguo Li, Southeast University, China
CHAIR
- Hongyang Chen, Fujitsu Labs Ltd, Japan
SCOPE
Air interface design solutions and related signal processing technology for future B5G/6G are expected to be tunable; an alternative is a set of use-case/service-specific/application driven air interface solutions that will jointly cover the overall requirement space in B5G. For devices, network infrastructure, and chipset manufactures, the latter solution would result in a need to support an increasingly heterogeneous system, which would in turn significantly increase implementation costs and complexity. Therefore, it will be highly important to develop options to harmonize and simplify design characteristics and functionalities to give room for the incoming B5G use cases.
Tuesday, September 11, 16.00 – 17.30
PROPONENTS
- Ilaria Thibault, Vodafone Group Technology, United Kingdom
- Alessandro Bazzi, National Research Council (CNR), Italy
CHAIRS
- Alessandro Bazzi, National Research Council (CNR), Italy
SCOPE
Connected and autonomous vehicles will deeply change our society in the coming years. Mobility will be safer, more efficient, greener, and also more comfortable. Nowadays, vehicles already have the ability to scan the environment and to take decisions autonomously, but the step change will be introduced once they will be able to autonomously coordinate and cooperate with each other beyond the boundaries introduced by line-of-sight communication technologies.
With this vision in mind, in the last decade much effort has been devoted for the definition and improvement of wireless technologies enabling the paradigm of vehicle-to-anything (V2X) communications, with activities carried out also at a political level in various parts of the world. Demonstrations are the recent rule proposal issued in the US (NPRM from NHTSA, January 2017) and the strategy declaration in the EU (Communication from EC, November 2016).
However, real implementations are still few and mainly aimed at trial and testing activities, and the debate is open about which technology will best enable a fully connected and autonomous transportation system. On the one side, IEEE 802.11p (with related protocols) appears ready and tested, even at large scale. On the other side, 3GPP Cellular-V2X introduced from Release 14 promises enhanced performance and has a clear evolution roadmap and long-term technical support by the ecosystem. In addition, other technologies like visible light or millimeter wave communications are emerging as possible enablers for new use cases. Is one of these technologies the optimal solution, able to cover all real cases and all conditions? Can they be enhanced with new ideas? Could hybrid technologies be part of the answer? Which applications will first drive V2X on our roads? Are we ready from a cybersecurity perspective? These and many other questions are still open and deserve contributions from industry and academia.
Tuesday, September 11, 16.00 – 17.30
PROPONENTS
- Enrico M. Vitucci, University of Bologna, Italy
- Conor Brennan, Dublin City University, Ireland
- Katsuyuki Haneda, Aalto University, Finland
CHAIR
- Enrico M. Vitucci, University of Bologna, Italy
SCOPE
Understanding of main radio propagation mechanisms is fundamental to the development of deterministic and physics-based propagation models, which are essential for the design and simulation of wireless systems. In particular, a thorough characterization of the major propagation phenomena at different frequencies is necessary in order to provide reliable channel models able to support the continuous evolution of wireless systems beyond 5G, where the increase in the number of frequency bands (ranging from centimeter to millimeter waves) and in the bandwidth (over hundreds of MHz), the use of highly directional and three-dimensional antenna arrays (beamforming and massive MIMO), and the variety of new application scenarios attract attention as compared to legacy wireless systems. In this context, ray-based propagation models, such as ray tracing and ray launching, have been gaining much more popularity than in the past, thanks to their intrinsic capability to provide a full characterization of radio propagation channel in the time, angular, and polarization domains. The computation times are no longer a problem with modern computers which can fully exploit the potential of parallel computing, either using multi-core CPUs or graphical accelerators (GPUs). In addition, full-wave models, such as Methods of Moments (MoM), physical optics and FDTD, have also become suitable for studying propagation in complex environments with high accuracy, or in the presence of objects whose size is comparable with the wavelength, and can be easily combined with ray models. Deterministic models can also be used for a variety of applications, including the design and planning of mobile radio systems and services, fingerprinting and multipath-based localization methods, and real-time optimization of wireless systems. This session aims at collecting activities and insights about recent development of enhanced ray-based propagation channel modeling methods and their applications.
SS-I Signal Processing and Air Interface Design Solutions for Beyond 5G Wireless Communications – II
Tuesday, September 11, 16.00 – 17.30
PROPONENTS
- Hongyang Chen, Fujitsu Labs Ltd, Japan
- Chunguo Li, Southeast University, China
CHAIR
- Jacek Ilow, Dalhousie University, Canada
SCOPE
Air interface design solutions and related signal processing technology for future B5G/6G are expected to be tunable; an alternative is a set of use-case/service-specific/application driven air interface solutions that will jointly cover the overall requirement space in B5G. For devices, network infrastructure, and chipset manufactures, the latter solution would result in a need to support an increasingly heterogeneous system, which would in turn significantly increase implementation costs and complexity. Therefore, it will be highly important to develop options to harmonize and simplify design characteristics and functionalities to give room for the incoming B5G use cases.
Wednesday, September 12, 14.00 – 15.30
PROPONENTS
- Anna Maria Vegni, Roma Tre University, Italy
- Valeria Loscrì, INRIA Lille-Nord Europe, France
- Pietro Manzoni, Universitat Politècnica de Valéncia, Spain
CHAIR
- Pietro Manzoni, Universitat Politècnica de Valéncia, Spain
SCOPE
The increasing popularity of mobile devices and the development of the wireless technologies allow humans and “things” to be connected ubiquitously. The mobility of the devices hinders maintaining the end-to-end path between source node and destination node.
Researchers introduced the analysis of nodes’ social behaviour to solve the problem of data dissemination in these networks, leading to the appearance of the Mobile Social Networks (MSNs). These networks increase the performance of data forwarding using the social relationships and interactions among nodes. Many schemes and algorithms have been proposed to enhance data forwarding performance and provide novel services by introducing social features and digging social properties.
Wednesday, September 12, 14.00 – 15.30
PROPONENTS
- George Iosifidis, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
- Iordanis Koutsopoulos, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
CHAIR
- Iordanis Koutsopoulos, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
SCOPE
As the number of mobile devices grows at unprecedented rates, their increasing cumulative computational power fuels a plethora of new applications, such as augmented reality, self-driving cars, cognitive personal assistants, as well as advanced smart-city and energy services. This new breed of applications heavily involves IoT and other device ecosystems at the wireless network edge. These applications need to perform data analytics tasks (such as video analytics, (deep) machine learning or text classification) impromptu and with low latency, so that their results are conveyed quickly where they are required, without the need to be transferred to the cloud.
A major challenge to overcome is that, despite the limited computational, bandwidth and caching resources at the edge, the achievable accuracy of data analytics should be similar to that when data analytics is performed at the cloud. Therefore, significant advances need to be made on how resources at the wireless edge are controlled, possibly in an adaptive manner so as to achieve the objective of high-accuracy and low-latency data analytics. Further, energy efficiency in edge computation is very important, given the scarce energy resources of mobile devices.
Wednesday, September 12, 14.00 – 15.30
PROPONENTS
- Michele Rossi, University of Padova, Italy
- Paolo Dini, Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), Spain
- Deniz Gündüz, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
CHAIR
- Michele Rossi, University of Padova, Italy
SCOPE
We foresee future networks where energy harvesting technology (e.g., through small factor solar panels, vibration, heat, radio energy backscattering, etc.) will be key to provide self-sufficiency and to reduce the carbon footprint of ICT. These networks range from (i) user equipment and IoT objects, whose operation is often limited by battery life, to (ii) 5G to network elements, whose operation is responsible of a high percentage of the energy drained from the power grid. Together with energy storage, energy harvesting can achieve system self-sustainability and drastically diminish the carbon footprint, as well as the system operation and maintenance costs. Energy harvesting and storage technologies have been studied for low-power IoT devices, but they have been recently utilized for base stations, remote radioheads and even data centers. The use of such technologies is expected to grow due to the ever increasing penetration of renewable energy sources and the increasing capacity and efficiency of batteries. A parallel trend is that of edge computing, where server resources, ranging from a credit-card size computer to a small data center, are placed closer to the data sources. This new paradigm enables rapid deployment and shift of computation tasks, in a software defined fashion, while providing advantages such as ultra low latency, and higher bandwidth, which are not possible with current cloud computing architectures.
The aim of this special session is to attract papers that jointly cover edge computing and energy harvesting, dealing with the challenges that arise in this setting, such as how to create and move computation resources according to traffic and energy patterns, how to optimally distribute energy computing resources within federations of micro edge servers and how this technology can be mapped onto 5G architectures.
Wednesday, September 12, 16.00 – 17.30
PROPONENTS
- Enrico Paolini, University of Bologna, Italy
- Gianluigi Liva, DLR, Germany
- Andrea Munari, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
CHAIR
- Enrico Paolini, University of Bologna, Italy
SCOPE
“Small data” refers to a rising paradigm in modern wireless networks, pointing to information exchanged by smart devices and sensors in the broad context of machine-type communications. Small data sets span typically from metering data and status reports to remote commands and data generated and transmitted within the IoT. They are generally produced by a multitude of devices which access the communication infrastructure sporadically, generating a massive amount of short packets that have to be received with high reliability, exploiting the available spectrum resources efficiently even in absence of coordination. In such a framework, the design of the network protocol departs from conventional approaches used for predictable and persistent data sources. Major changes have to be applied to the physical and the medium access control (MAC) layers to account for the sporadic nature of the transmissions, touching all basic aspects from signal detection, channel estimation, coding and modulation up to the medium sharing policies and possibly involving the higher layers of the communications stack. While traditional protocols treat interference as a waste and therefore are designed to avoid them, in recent years several innovative developments have been proposed, such as physical layer network coding and various techniques based on successive interference cancellation (SIC), where interference is instead embraced and creatively utilized. These developments have opened a completely new perspective for uncoordinated protocols, paving the way to dramatic performance improvements, and rendering the throughput of interference-limited channels competitive with respect to that of systems relying on predictable data sources. This is calling for new studies on the fundamental limits as well as on finding optimal ways of designing waveform, signal-processing algorithms, error correcting schemes and access protocols, and on theoretical tools to drive the system design.
Research in the field is further buttressed by clearly defined market-driven goals from the industry, in the quest for highly reliable, highly efficient, low-complexity access solutions for a massive number of devices. The road towards 5G and more generally machine-type communications represent only some relevant application examples where upcoming research has the potential to leave a fundamental mark. The goal of this special session is to stimulate new contributions to the topic, with emphasis on cross-layer interactions between the MAC and PHY layers of the protocol stack, as well as on the connections to coding and information theory.