arXiv subjects

Petar Popovski

Publications and source records attributed to Petar Popovski.

At least 289 records · Page 16Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Standalone Deployment of a Dynamic Drone Cell for Wireless Connectivity of Two Services

We treat a setting in which two priority wireless service classes are offered in a given area by a drone small cell (DSC). Specifically, we consider broadband (BB) user with high priority and reliability requirements that coexists with random access machine-type-communications (MTC) devices. The drone serves both connectivity types with a combination of orthogonal slicing of the wireless resources and dynamic horizontal opportunistic positioning (D-HOP). We treat the D-HOP as a computational geometry function over stochastic BB user locations which requires careful adjustment in the deployment parameters to ensure MTC service at all times. Using an information theoretic approach, we optimize DSC deployment properties and radio resource allocation for the purpose of maximizing the average rate of BB users. While respecting the strict dual service requirements we analyze how system performance is affected by stochastic user positioning and density, topology, and reliability constraints combinations. The numerical results show that this approach outperforms static DSCs that fit the same coverage constraints, with outstanding performance in the urban setting.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2021

Hidden Markov Model-Based Encoding for Time-Correlated IoT Sources

As the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices for monitoring purposes becomes ubiquitous, the efficiency of sensor communication is a major issue for the modern Internet. Channel coding is less efficient for extremely short packets, and traditional techniques that rely on source compression require extensive signaling or pre-existing knowledge of the source dynamics. In this work, we propose an encoding and decoding scheme that learns source dynamics online using a Hidden Markov Model (HMM), puncturing a short packet code to outperform existing compression-based approaches. Our approach shows significant performance improvements for sources that are highly correlated in time, with no additional complexity on the sender side.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2021

Peak Age of Information Distribution for Edge Computing with Wireless Links

Age of Information (AoI) is a critical metric for several Internet of Things (IoT) applications, where sensors keep track of the environment by sending updates that need to be as fresh as possible. The development of edge computing solutions has moved the monitoring process closer to the sensor, reducing the communication delays, but the processing time of the edge node needs to be taken into account. Furthermore, a reliable system design in terms of freshness requires the knowledge of the full distribution of the Peak AoI (PAoI), from which the probability of occurrence of rare, but extremely damaging events can be obtained. In this work, we model the communication and computation delay of such a system as two First Come First Serve (FCFS) queues in tandem, analytically deriving the full distribution of the PAoI for the M/M/1 - M/D/1 and the M/M/1 - M/M/1 tandems, which can represent a wide variety of realistic scenarios.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2021

Sparse Signatures with Forward Error Correction Coding for Non-Orthogonal Massive Access

In massive connectivity scenarios with short packets, of interest is the regime where users share wireless resources in a non-orthogonal fashion. Small payloads combined with sporadic user activation call for approaches that jointly address the users access to the shared resources and the design of the channel code. In this paper, we propose a transmission scheme that combines sparse signatures with finite-length forward error correction (FEC) coding for non-orthogonal massive access. Our signature design is based on Euler squares, which are special instances of quasi-cyclic partial geometries that yield sparse graphs with favorable decoding properties. Following a graph-theoretic approach, we explicate the benefits of the coding scheme for the receiver processing that involves joint user detection and decoding. The proposed construction is flexible and can be explicitly characterized for a large number of combinations of system parameters, suitable for both grant-based and grant-free massive access. Finally, unlike common existing schemes, our scheme can be applied to unsourced random access (U-RA). We numerically characterize the trade-off between system parameters such as number of users, load and channel coding rate. The performance evaluation against the state of the art illustrates the potential of the scheme to provide an energy-efficient solution for U-RA.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2021

Inter-Plane Inter-Satellite Connectivity in Dense LEO Constellations

With numerous ongoing deployments owned by private companies and startups, dense satellite constellations deployed in low Earth orbit (LEO) will play a major role in the near future of wireless communications. In addition, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has ongoing efforts to integrate satellites into 5G and beyond-5G networks. Nevertheless, numerous challenges must be overcome to fully exploit the connectivity capabilities of satellite constellations. These challenges are mainly a consequence of the low capabilities of individual small satellites, along with their high orbital speeds and small coverage due to the low altitude of deployment. In particular, inter-plane inter-satellite links (ISLs), which connect satellites from different orbital planes, are greatly dynamic and may be considerably affected by the Doppler shift. In this paper, we present a framework and the corresponding algorithms for the dynamic establishment of the inter-plane ISLs in LEO constellations. Our results show that the proposed algorithms increase the sum of rates in the constellation 1) by up to 115% with respect to the state-of-the-art benchmark schemes in an interference-free environment and 2) by up to 71% when compared to random resource allocation in a worst-case scenario for interference.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2021

Trusted Wireless Monitoring based on Blockchain over NB-IoT Connectivity

The data collected from Internet of Things (IoT) devices on various emissions or pollution, can have a significant economic value for the stakeholders. This makes it prone to abuse or tampering and brings forward the need to integrate IoT with a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to collect, store, and protect the IoT data. However, DLT brings an additional overhead to the frugal IoT connectivity and symmetrizes the IoT traffic, thus changing the usual assumption that IoT is uplink-oriented. We have implemented a platform that integrates DLTs with a monitoring system based on narrowband IoT (NB-IoT). We evaluate the performance and discuss the tradeoffs in two use cases: data authorization and real-time monitoring.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

Modeling and Analysis of Data Trading on Blockchain-based Market in IoT Networks

Mobile devices with embedded sensors for data collection and environmental sensing create a basis for a cost-effective approach for data trading. For example, these data can be related to pollution and gas emissions, which can be used to check the compliance with national and international regulations. The current approach for IoT data trading relies on a centralized third-party entity to negotiate between data consumers and data providers, which is inefficient and insecure on a large scale. In comparison, a decentralized approach based on distributed ledger technologies (DLT) enables data trading while ensuring trust, security, and privacy. However, due to the lack of understanding of the communication efficiency between sellers and buyers, there is still a significant gap in benchmarking the data trading protocols in IoT environments. Motivated by this knowledge gap, we introduce a model for DLT-based IoT data trading over the Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) system, intended to support massive environmental sensing. We characterize the communication efficiency of three basic DLT-based IoT data trading protocols via NB-IoT connectivity in terms of latency and energy consumption. The model and analyses of these protocols provide a benchmark for IoT data trading applications.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2020

Frequency-Mixing Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces for Nonlinear Wireless Propagation

We introduce the concept of frequency-mixing intelligent reflecting surface (FMx-IRS), where the elements of the surface continuously change the phases of the incident signals. In this way, the FMx-IRS acts as a frequency mixer and makes the propagation environment nonlinear, thereby introducing new frequencies. We study the basic features of the proposed concept and demonstrate its advantages that stem from the novel type of control over the wireless propagation. The channel decoupling feature and the correlation between reflected channels are elaborated for the architecture, and are validated by the simulations.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2020

Inference over Wireless IoT Links with Importance-Filtered Updates

We consider a communication cell comprised of Internet-of-Things (IoT) nodes transmitting to a common Access Point (AP). The nodes in the cell are assumed to generate data samples periodically, which are to be transmitted to the AP. The AP hosts a machine learning model, such as a neural network, which is trained on the received data samples to make accurate inferences. We address the following tradeoff: The more often the IoT nodes transmit, the higher the accuracy of the inference made by the AP, but also the higher the energy expenditure at the IoT nodes. We propose a data filtering scheme employed by the IoT nodes, which we refer to as distributed importance filtering in order to filter out redundant data samples already at the IoT nodes. The IoT nodes do not have large on-device machine learning models and the data filtering scheme operates under periodic instructions from the model placed at the AP. The proposed scheme is evaluated using neural networks on a benchmark machine vision dataset, as well as in two practical scenarios: leakage detection in water distribution networks and air-pollution detection in urban areas. The results show that the proposed scheme offers significant benefits in terms of network longevity as it preserves the devices' resources, whilst maintaining high inference accuracy. Our approach reduces the the computational complexity for training the model and obviates the need for data pre-processing, which makes it highly applicable in practical IoT scenarios.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2020

A Primer on Large Intelligent Surface (LIS) for Wireless Sensing in an Industrial Setting

One of the beyond-5G developments that is often highlighted is the integration of wireless communication and radio sensing. This paper addresses the potential of communication-sensing integration of Large Intelligent Surfaces (LIS) in an exemplary Industry 4.0 scenario. Besides the potential for high throughput and efficient multiplexing of wireless links, an LIS can offer a high-resolution rendering of the propagation environment. This is because, in an indoor setting, it can be placed in proximity to the sensed phenomena, while the high resolution is offered by densely spaced tiny antennas deployed over a large area. By treating an LIS as a radio image of the environment, we develop sensing techniques that leverage the usage of computer vision combined with machine learning. We test these methods for a scenario where we need to detect whether an industrial robot deviates from a predefined route. The results show that the LIS-based sensing offers high precision and has a high application potential in indoor industrial environments.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2020

IoT Wallet: Machine Learning-based Sensor Portfolio Application

In this paper an application for building sensor wallet is presented. Currently, given system collects sensor data from The Things Network (TTN) cloud system, stores the data into the Influx database and presents the processed data to the user dashboard. Based on the type of the user, data can be viewed-only, controlled or the top user can register the sensor to the system. Moreover, the system can notify users based on the rules that can be adjusted through the user interface. The special feature of the system is the machine learning service that can be used in various scenarios and is presented throughout the case study that gives a novel approach to estimate soil moisture from the signal strength of a given underground LoRa beacon node.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2020

5G satellite networks for IoT: offloading and backhauling

One of the main drivers of 5G cellular networks is provision of connectivity service for various Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Considering the potential volume of IoT devices at a global scale, the next leap is to integrate Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) into 5G terrestrial systems, thereby extend the coverage and complement the terrestrial service. This paper focuses on the use of Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations for two specific purposes: offloading and backhauling. The former allows offloading IoT traffic from a congested terrestrial network, usually in a very dense area. In the latter application, the constellation provides a multi-hop backhaul that connects a remote terrestrial gNB to the 5G core network. After providing an overview of the status of the 3GPP standardization process, we model and analyze the user data performance, specifically in the uplink access and the satellite multi-hop constellation path. The evaluation of the collisions, the delay and the Age of Information, and the comparison of the terrestrial and the satellite access networks provide useful insights to understand the potential of LEO constellations for offloading and backhauling of IoT traffic.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2020

Freshness on Demand: Optimizing Age of Information for the Query Process

Age of Information (AoI) has become an important concept in communications, as it allows system designers to measure the freshness of the information available to remote monitoring or control processes. However, its definition tacitly assumed that new information is used at any time, which is not always the case and the instants at which information is collected and used are dependent on a certain query process. We propose a model that accounts for the discrete time nature of many monitoring processes, considering a pull-based communication model in which the freshness of information is only important when the receiver generates a query. We then define the Age of Information at Query (QAoI), a more general metric that fits the pull-based scenario, and show how its optimization can lead to very different choices from traditional push-based AoI optimization when using a Packet Erasure Channel (PEC).

cs.IT↗

arXiv2020

Slicing a single wireless collision channel among throughput- and timeliness-sensitive services

The fifth generation (5G) wireless system has a platform-driven approach, aiming to support heterogeneous connections with very diverse requirements. The shared wireless resources should be sliced in a way that each user perceives that its requirement has been met. Heterogeneity challenges the traditional notion of resource efficiency, as the resource usage has cater for, e.g. rate maximization for one user and timeliness requirement for another user. This paper treats a model for radio access network (RAN) uplink, where a throughput-demanding broadband user shares wireless resources with an intermittently active user that wants to optimize the timeliness, expressed in terms of latency-reliability or Age of Information (AoI). We evaluate the trade-offs between throughput and timeliness for Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA) as well as Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) with successive interference cancellation (SIC). We observe that NOMA with SIC, in a conservative scenario with destructive collisions, is just slightly inferior to that of OMA, which indicates that it may offer significant benefits in practical deployments where the capture effect is frequently encountered. On the other hand, finding the optimal configuration of NOMA with SIC depends on the activity pattern of the intermittent user, to which OMA is insensitive.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2020

Band Assignment in Ultra-Narrowband (UNB) Systems for Massive IoT Access

In this work, we consider a novel type of Internet of Things (IoT) ultra-narrowband (UNB) network architecture that involves multiple multiplexing bands or channels for uplink transmission. An IoT device can randomly choose any of the multiplexing bands and transmit its packet. Due to hardware constraints, a base station (BS) is able to listen to only one multiplexing band. The hardware constraint is mainly due to the complexity of performing fast Fourier transform (FFT) at a very small sampling interval over the multiplexing bands in order to counter the uncertainty of IoT device frequency and synchronize onto transmissions. The objective is to find an assignment of BSs to multiplexing bands in order to maximize the packet decoding probability (PDP). We develop a learning-based algorithm based on a sub-optimal solution to PDP maximization. The simulation results show that our approach to band assignment achieves near-optimal performance in terms of PDP, while at the same time, significantly exceeding the performance of random assignment. We also develop a heuristic algorithm with no learning overhead based on the locations of the BSs that also outperforms random assignment and serves as a performance reference to our learning-based algorithm.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2020

LEO Small-Satellite Constellations for 5G and Beyond-5G Communications

The next frontier towards truly ubiquitous connectivity is the use of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) small-satellite constellations to support 5G and Beyond-5G (B5G) networks. Besides enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and massive machine-type communications (mMTC), LEO constellations can support ultra-reliable communications (URC) with relaxed latency requirements of a few tens of milliseconds. Small-satellite impairments and the use of low orbits pose major challenges to the design and performance of these networks, but also open new innovation opportunities. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the physical and logical links, along with the essential architectural and technological components that enable the full integration of LEO constellations into 5G and B5G systems. Furthermore, we characterize and compare each physical link category and explore novel techniques to maximize the achievable data rates.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2020

Age of Information in Multi-hop Networks with Priorities

Age of Information is a new metric used in real-time status update tracking applications. It measures at the destination the time elapsed since the generation of the last received packet. In this paper, we consider the co-existence of critical and noncritical status updates in a two-hop system, for which the network assigns different scheduling priorities. Specifically, the high priority is reserved to the packets that traverse the two nodes, as they experience worse latency performance. We obtain the distribution of the age and its natural upper bound termed peak age. We provide tight upper and lower bounds for priority updates and the exact expressions for the non-critical flow of packets with a general service distribution. The results give fundamental insights for the design of age-sensitive multi-hop systems.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2020

Queuing with Deterministic Service Times and No Waiting Lines in Machine Type Communications

The growth of Machine-Type Communication (MTC) increases the relevance of queuing scenarios with deterministic service times. In this letter, we present a model for queues without waiting lines and with degenerate service time distributions and show how the framework is extendable to model general service time distributions. Simple bounds and a close approximation of the blocking probability are derived and the results are shown to hold for simulated queues with Markovian and degenerate arrival processes.

cs.NI↗