arXiv subjects

Ben Liang

Publications and source records attributed to Ben Liang.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Resource Allocation for Massive MIMO HetNets with Quantize-Forward Relaying

We investigate how massive MIMO impacts the uplink transmission design in a heterogeneous network (HetNet) where multiple users communicate with a macro-cell base station (MCBS) with the help of a small-cell BS (SCBS) with zero-forcing (ZF) detection at each BS. We first analyze the quantize-forward (QF) relaying scheme with joint decoding (JD) at the MCBS. To maximize the rate region, we optimize the quantization of all user data streams at the SCBS by developing a novel water-filling algorithm that is based on the Descartes' rule of signs. Our result shows that as a user link to the SCBS becomes stronger than that to the MCBS, the SCBS deploys finer quantization to that user data stream. We further propose a new simplified scheme through Wyner-Ziv (WZ) binning and time-division (TD) transmission at the SCBS, which allows not only sequential but also separate decoding of each user message at the MCBS. For this new QF-WZTD scheme, the optimal quantization parameters are identical to that of the QF-JD scheme while the phase durations are conveniently optimized as functions of the quantization parameters. Despite its simplicity, the QF-WZTD scheme achieves the same rate performance of the QF-JD scheme, making it an attractive option for future HetNets.

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arXiv2021

Online Multi-Cell Coordinated MIMO Wireless Network Virtualization with Imperfect CSI

We consider online coordinated precoding design for downlink wireless network virtualization (WNV) in a multi-cell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network with imperfect channel state information (CSI). In our WNV framework, an infrastructure provider (InP) owns each base station that is shared by several service providers (SPs) oblivious of each other. The SPs design their precoders as virtualization demands for user services, while the InP designs the actual precoding solution to meet the service demands from the SPs. Our aim is to minimize the long-term time-averaged expected precoding deviation over MIMO fading channels, subject to both per-cell long-term and short-term transmit power limits. We propose an online coordinated precoding algorithm for virtualization, which provides a fully distributed semi-closed-form precoding solution at each cell, based only on the current imperfect CSI without any CSI exchange across cells. Taking into account the two-fold impact of imperfect CSI on both the InP and the SPs, we show that our proposed algorithm is within an $O(δ)$ gap from the optimum over any time horizon, where $δ$ is a CSI inaccuracy indicator. Simulation results validate the performance of our proposed algorithm under two commonly used precoding techniques in a typical urban micro-cell network environment.

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arXiv2021

Delay-Tolerant Constrained OCO with Application to Network Resource Allocation

We consider online convex optimization (OCO) with multi-slot feedback delay, where an agent makes a sequence of online decisions to minimize the accumulation of time-varying convex loss functions, subject to short-term and long-term constraints that are possibly time-varying. The current convex loss function and the long-term constraint function are revealed to the agent only after the decision is made, and they may be delayed for multiple time slots. Existing work on OCO under this general setting has focused on the static regret, which measures the gap of losses between the online decision sequence and an offline benchmark that is fixed over time. In this work, we consider both the static regret and the more practically meaningful dynamic regret, where the benchmark is a time-varying sequence of per-slot optimizers. We propose an efficient algorithm, termed Delay-Tolerant Constrained-OCO (DTC-OCO), which uses a novel constraint penalty with double regularization to tackle the asynchrony between information feedback and decision updates. We derive upper bounds on its dynamic regret, static regret, and constraint violation, proving them to be sublinear under mild conditions. We further apply DTC-OCO to a general network resource allocation problem, which arises in many systems such as data networks and cloud computing. Simulation results demonstrate substantial performance gain of DTC-OCO over the known best alternative.

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arXiv2021

Flow-Packet Hybrid Traffic Classification for Class-Aware Network Routing

Network traffic classification using machine learning techniques has been widely studied. Most existing schemes classify entire traffic flows, but there are major limitations to their practicality. At a network router, the packets need to be processed with minimum delay, so the classifier cannot wait until the end of the flow to make a decision. Furthermore, a complicated machine learning algorithm can be too computationally expensive to implement inside the router. In this paper, we introduce flow-packet hybrid traffic classification (FPHTC), where the router makes a decision per packet based on a routing policy that is designed through transferring the learned knowledge from a flow-based classifier residing outside the router. We analyze the generalization bound of FPHTC and show its advantage over regular packet-based traffic classification. We present experimental results using a real-world traffic dataset to illustrate the classification performance of FPHTC. We show that it is robust toward traffic pattern changes and can be deployed with limited computational resource.

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arXiv2021

Distributed coordinated precoding for MIMO cellular network virtualization

This paper presents a new virtualization method for the downlink of a multi-cell multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network, to achieve service isolation among multiple Service Providers (SPs) that share the base station resources of an Infrastructure Provider (InP). Each SP designs a virtual precoder for its users in each cell, as its service demand to the InP, without the need to be aware of the existence of the other SPs or to know the channel state information (CSI) outside the cell. The InP performs network virtualization to meet the SPs' service demands while managing both the inter-SP and inter-cell interference. We consider coordinated multi-cell precoding at the InP and formulate an optimization problem to minimize a weighted sum of signal leakage and precoding deviation, with per-cell transmit power constraints. We propose a fully distributed semi-closed-form solution at each cell, without any CSI exchange across cells. We further propose a low-complexity scheme to allocate the virtual transmit power, for the InP to regulate between interference elimination and virtual demand maximization. Simulation results demonstrate that our precoding solution for network virtualization substantially outperforms the traditional spectrum isolation alternative. It can approach the performance of fully cooperative precoding when the number of antennas is large.

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arXiv2021

Task Offloading and Resource Allocation with Multiple CAPs and Selfish Users

In this work, we consider a multi-user mobile edge computing system with multiple computing access points (CAPs). Each mobile user has multiple dependent tasks that must be processed in a round-by-round schedule. In every round, a user may process their individual task locally, or choose to offload their task to one of the $M$ CAPs or the remote cloud server, in order to possibly reduce their processing cost. We aim to jointly optimize the offloading decisions of the users and the resource allocation decisions for each CAP over a global objective function, defined as a weighted sum of total energy consumption and the round time. We first present a centralized heuristic solution, termed MCAP, where the original problem is relaxed to a semi-definite program (SDP) to probabilistically generate the offloading decision. Then, recognizing that the users often exhibit selfish behavior to reduce their individual cost, we propose a game-theoretical approach, termed MCAP-NE, which allows us to compute a Nash Equilibrium (NE) through a finite improvement method starting from the previous SDP solution. This approach leads to a solution from which the users have no incentive to deviate, with substantially reduced NE computation time. In simulation, we compare the system cost of the NE solution with those of MCAP, MCAP-NE, a random mapping, and the optimal solution, showing that our NE solution attains near optimal performance under a wide set of parameter settings, as well as demonstrating the advantages of using MCAP to produce the initial point for MCAP-NE.

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arXiv2020

Novel Molecular Signaling Method and System for Molecular Communication in Human Body

Recently, Molecular Communication (MC) has been recognized as an enabling technology for nanonetworks where MC is envisioned to enable nanorobots to achieve sophisticated and complex tasks in the human body for promising medical applications. Many MC methods that can be applied in the human body have been proposed and modeled in the literature. However, none of them can be used to convey information between distant points that are separated by body fluids, tissues, or placed in different organs. In this paper, we propose a new method and system for Molecular Communication in the Body, denoted MoSiMe and MoCoBo, respectively. The method takes advantage of how the absorption, distribution, metabolization, and elimination (ADME) bodily processes affects drugs, referred to as Pharmacokinetics (PK) in pharmacology, to enable MC between any points of the human body regardless of their distance even if they are in different parts of the body and separated by tissues and fluids. The architecture, design and components of the MoCoBo system and MoSiMe method are described and different transmitter designs, including a novel passive transmitter design for the first time in telecommunications, are introduced. An analytical model for the body channel is derived and validated with respect to existing human and animal tests. The model captures the ADME bodily processes that affect the kinetics of substances administered to the body. Additionally, an experimental MoCoBo proof of concept platform, capable of reliably sending and receiving a stream of bits between a transmitter and a receiver, is built and validated against clinical trials, animal tests and analytical models. The introduced platform can also be utilized to test modulation techniques and designs for new MoCoBo transmitters and receivers.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2020

Online Resource Procurement and Allocation in a Hybrid Edge-Cloud Computing System

By acquiring cloud-like capacities at the edge of a network, edge computing is expected to significantly improve user experience. In this paper, we formulate a hybrid edge-cloud computing system where an edge device with limited local resources can rent more from a cloud node and perform resource allocation to serve its users. The resource procurement and allocation decisions depend not only on the cloud's multiple rental options but also on the edge's local processing cost and capacity. We first propose an offline algorithm whose decisions are made with full information of future demand. Then, an online algorithm is proposed where the edge node makes irrevocable decisions in each timeslot without future information of demand. We show that both algorithms have constant performance bounds from the offline optimum. Numerical results acquired with Google cluster-usage traces indicate that the cost of the edge node can be substantially reduced by using the proposed algorithms, up to $80\%$ in comparison with baseline algorithms. We also observe how the cloud's pricing structure and edge's local cost influence the procurement decisions.

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arXiv2018

Multi-user Multi-task Offloading and Resource Allocation in Mobile Cloud Systems

We consider a general multi-user Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) system where each mobile user has multiple independent tasks. These mobile users share the computation and communication resources while offloading tasks to the cloud. We study both the conventional MCC where tasks are offloaded to the cloud through a wireless access point, and MCC with a computing access point (CAP), where the CAP serves both as the network access gateway and a computation service provider to the mobile users. We aim to jointly optimize the offloading decisions of all users as well as the allocation of computation and communication resources, to minimize the overall cost of energy, computation, and delay for all users. The optimization problem is formulated as a non-convex quadratically constrained quadratic program, which is NP-hard in general. For the case without a CAP, an efficient approximate solution named MUMTO is proposed by using separable semidefinite relaxation (SDR), followed by recovery of the binary offloading decision and optimal allocation of the communication resource. To solve the more complicated problem with a CAP, we further propose an efficient three-step algorithm named MUMTO-C comprising of generalized MUMTO SDR with CAP, alternating optimization, and sequential tuning, which always computes a locally optimal solution. For performance benchmarking, we further present numerical lower bounds of the minimum system cost with and without the CAP. By comparison with this lower bound, our simulation results show that the proposed solutions for both scenarios give nearly optimal performance under various parameter settings, and the resultant efficient utilization of a CAP can bring substantial cost benefit.

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arXiv2018

Resource Sharing of a Computing Access Point for Multi-user Mobile Cloud Offloading with Delay Constraints

We consider a mobile cloud computing system with multiple users, a remote cloud server, and a computing access point (CAP). The CAP serves both as the network access gateway and a computation service provider to the mobile users. It can either process the received tasks from mobile users or offload them to the cloud. We jointly optimize the offloading decisions of all users, together with the allocation of computation and communication resources, to minimize the overall cost of energy consumption, computation, and maximum delay among users. The joint optimization problem is formulated as a mixed-integer program. We show that the problem can be reformulated and transformed into a non-convex quadratically constrained quadratic program, which is NP-hard in general. We then propose an efficient solution to this problem by semidefinite relaxation and a novel randomization mapping method. Furthermore, when there is a strict delay constraint for processing each user's task, we further propose a three-step algorithm to guarantee the feasibility and local optimality of the obtained solution. Our simulation results show that the proposed solutions give nearly optimal performance under a wide range of parameter settings, and the addition of a CAP can significantly reduce the cost of multi-user task offloading compared with conventional mobile cloud computing where only the remote cloud server is available.

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arXiv2017

Unified Stochastic Geometry Modeling and Analysis of Cellular Networks in LOS/NLOS and Shadowed Fading

Statistical characterization of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) via its cumulative distribution function (CDF) is ubiquitous in a vast majority of technical contributions in the area of cellular networks since it boils down to averaging the Laplace transform of the aggregate interference, a benefit accorded at the expense of confinement to the simplistic Rayleigh fading. In this work, to capture diverse fading channels that appear in realistic outdoor/indoor wireless communication scenarios, we tackle the problem differently. By exploting the moment generating function (MGF) of the SINR, we succeed in analytically assessing cellular networks performance over the shadowed κ-μ, κ-μ and η-μ fading models. The latter offer high flexibility by capturing diverse fading channels including Rayleigh, Nakagami-m, Rician, and Rician shadow fading distributions. These channel models have been recently praised for their capability to accurately model dense urban environments, future femtocells and device-to-device (D2D) shadowed channels. In addition to unifying the analysis for different channel models, this work integrates, for the first time, the coverage, the achievable rate, and the bit error probability (BEP), which are largely treated separately in the literature. The developed model and analysis are validated over a broad range of simulation setups and parameters.

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arXiv2017

Software Defined Networking Enabled Wireless Network Virtualization: Challenges and Solutions

Next generation (5G) wireless networks are expected to support the massive data and accommodate a wide range of services/use cases with distinct requirements in a cost-effective, flexible, and agile manner. As a promising solution, wireless network virtualization (WNV), or network slicing, enables multiple virtual networks to share the common infrastructure on demand, and to be customized for different services/use cases. This article focuses on network-wide resource allocation for realizing WNV. Specifically, the motivations, the enabling platforms, and the benefits of WNV, are first reviewed. Then, resource allocation for WNV along with the technical challenges is discussed. Afterwards, a software defined networking (SDN) enabled resource allocation framework is proposed to facilitate WNV, including the key procedures and the corresponding modeling approaches. Furthermore, a case study is provided as an example of resource allocation in WNV. Finally, some open research topics essential to WNV are discussed.

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arXiv2016

Distributed Real-Time Power Balancing in Renewable-Integrated Power Grids with Storage and Flexible Loads

The large-scale integration of renewable generation directly affects the reliability of power grids. We investigate the problem of power balancing in a general renewable-integrated power grid with storage and flexible loads. We consider a power grid that is supplied by one conventional generator (CG) and multiple renewable generators (RGs) each co-located with storage,and is connected with external markets. An aggregator operates the power grid to maintain power balance between supply and demand. Aiming at minimizing the long-term system cost, we first propose a real-time centralized power balancing solution, taking into account the uncertainty of the renewable generation, loads, and energy prices. We then provide a distributed implementation algorithm, significantly reducing both computational burden and communication overhead. We demonstrate that our proposed algorithm is asymptotically optimal as the storage capacity increases and the CG ramping constraint loosens. Moreover, the distributed implementation enjoys a fast convergence rate, and enables each RG and the aggregator to make their own decisions. Simulation shows that our proposed algorithm outperforms alternatives and can achieve near-optimal performance for a wide range of storage capacity.

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arXiv2015

Jointly Optimal Channel Pairing and Power Allocation for Multichannel Multihop Relaying

We study the problem of channel pairing and power allocation in a multichannel multihop relay network to enhance the end-to-end data rate. Both amplify-and-forward (AF) and decode-and-forward (DF) relaying strategies are considered. Given fixed power allocation to the channels, we show that channel pairing over multiple hops can be decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay, and a sorted-SNR channel pairing strategy is sum-rate optimal, where each relay pairs its incoming and outgoing channels by their SNR order. For the joint optimization of channel pairing and power allocation under both total and individual power constraints, we show that the problem can be decoupled into two subproblems solved separately. This separation principle is established by observing the equivalence between sorting SNRs and sorting channel gains in the jointly optimal solution. It significantly reduces the computational complexity in finding the jointly optimal solution. It follows that the channel pairing problem in joint optimization can be again decomposed into independent pairing problems at each relay based on sorted channel gains. The solution for optimizing power allocation for DF relaying is also provided, as well as an asymptotically optimal solution for AF relaying. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate substantial performance gain of the jointly optimal solution over some suboptimal alternatives. It is also observed that more gain is obtained from optimal channel pairing than optimal power allocation through judiciously exploiting the variation among multiple channels. Impact of the variation of channel gain, the number of channels, and the number of hops on the performance gain is also studied through numerical examples.

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arXiv2015

Phase Balancing Using Energy Storage in Power Grids under Uncertainty

Phase balancing is essential to safe power system operation. We consider a substation connected to multiple phases, each with single-phase loads, generation, and energy storage. A representative of the substation operates the system and aims to minimize the cost of all phases and to balance loads among phases. We first consider ideal energy storage with lossless charging and discharging, and propose both centralized and distributed real-time algorithms taking into account system uncertainty. The proposed algorithm does not require any system statistics and asymptotically achieves the minimum system cost with large energy storage. We then extend the algorithm to accommodate more realistic non-ideal energy storage that has imperfect charging and discharging. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated through extensive simulation and compared with that of a benchmark greedy algorithm. Simulation shows that our algorithm leads to strong performance over a wide range of storage characteristics.

math.OC↗

arXiv2014

Optimizing User Association and Spectrum Allocation in HetNets: A Utility Perspective

The joint user association and spectrum allocation problem is studied for multi-tier heterogeneous networks (HetNets) in both downlink and uplink in the interference-limited regime. Users are associated with base-stations (BSs) based on the biased downlink received power. Spectrum is either shared or orthogonally partitioned among the tiers. This paper models the placement of BSs in different tiers as spatial point processes and adopts stochastic geometry to derive the theoretical mean proportionally fair utility of the network based on the coverage rate. By formulating and solving the network utility maximization problem, the optimal user association bias factors and spectrum partition ratios are analytically obtained for the multi-tier network. The resulting analysis reveals that the downlink and uplink user associations do not have to be symmetric. For uplink under spectrum sharing, if all tiers have the same target signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), distance-based user association is shown to be optimal under a variety of path loss and power control settings. For both downlink and uplink, under orthogonal spectrum partition, it is shown that the optimal proportion of spectrum allocated to each tier should match the proportion of users associated with that tier. Simulations validate the analytical results. Under typical system parameters, simulation results suggest that spectrum partition performs better for downlink in terms of utility, while spectrum sharing performs better for uplink with power control.

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arXiv2014

Correlations of Interference and Link Successes in Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

In heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs), the interference received at a user is correlated over time slots since it comes from the same set of randomly located BSs. This results in the correlations of link successes, thus affecting network performance. Under the assumptions of a K-tier Poisson network, strongest-candidate based BS association, and independent Rayleigh fading, we first quantify the correlation coefficients of interference. We observe that the interference correlation is independent of the number of tiers, BS density, SIR threshold, and transmit power. Then, we study the correlations of link successes in terms of the joint success probability over multiple time slots. We show that the joint success probability is decided by the success probability in a single time slot and a diversity polynomial, which represents the temporal interference correlation. Moreover, the parameters of HCNs have an important influence on the joint success probability by affecting the success probability in a single time slot. Particularly, we obtain the condition under which the joint success probability increases with the BS density and transmit power. We further show that the conditional success probability given prior successes only depends on the path loss exponent and the number of time slots.

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arXiv2014

Uplink Interference Analysis for Two-tier Cellular Networks with Diverse Users under Random Spatial Patterns

Multi-tier architecture improves the spatial reuse of radio spectrum in cellular networks, but it introduces complicated heterogeneity in the spatial distribution of transmitters, which brings new challenges in interference analysis. In this work, we present a stochastic geometric model to evaluate the uplink interference in a two-tier network considering multi-type users and base stations. Each type of tier-1 users and tier-2 base stations are modeled as independent homogeneous Poisson point processes, and tier-2 users are modeled as locally non-homogeneous clustered Poisson point processes centered at tier-2 base stations. By applying a superposition-aggregation-superposition approach, we quantify the interference at both tiers. Our model is also able to capture the impact of two types of exclusion regions, where either tier-2 base stations or tier-2 users are restricted in order to avoid cross-tier interference. As an important application of this analytical model, an intensity planning scenario is investigated, in which we aim to maximize the total income of the network operator with respect to the intensities of tier-2 cells, under constraints on the outage probabilities of tier-1 and tier-2 users. The result of our interference analysis suggests that this maximization can be converted to a standard convex optimization problem. Finally, numerical studies further demonstrate the correctness of our analysis.

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