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Sandra Lagen

Publications and source records attributed to Sandra Lagen.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

Agentic World Modeling for 6G: Near-Real-Time Generative State-Space Reasoning

We argue that sixth-generation (6G) intelligence is not fluent token prediction but the capacity to imagine and choose -- to simulate future scenarios, weigh trade-offs, and act with calibrated uncertainty. We reframe open radio access network (O-RAN) near-real-time (Near-RT) control via counterfactual dynamics and a world modeling (WM) paradigm that learns an action-conditioned generative state space. This enables quantitative "what-if" forecasting beyond large language models (LLMs) as the primary modeling primitive. Actions such as physical resource blocks (PRBs) are treated as first-class control inputs in a causal world model, and both aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty are modeled for prediction and what-if analysis. An agentic, model predictive control (MPC)-based cross-entropy method (CEM) planner operates over short horizons, using prior-mean rollouts within data-driven PRB bounds to maximize a deterministic reward. The model couples multi-scale structured state-space mixtures (MS3M) with a compact stochastic latent to form WM-MS3M, summarizing key performance indicators (KPIs) histories and predicting next-step KPIs under hypothetical PRB sequences. On realistic O-RAN traces, WM-MS3M cuts mean absolute error (MAE) by 1.69% versus MS3M with 32% fewer parameters and similar latency, and achieves 35-80% lower root mean squared error (RMSE) than attention/hybrid baselines with 2.3-4.1x faster inference, enabling rare-event simulation and offline policy screening.

cs.NI

Toward Generative 6G Simulation: An Experimental Multi-Agent LLM and ns-3 Integration

The move toward open Sixth-Generation (6G) networks necessitates a novel approach to full-stack simulation environments for evaluating complex technology developments before prototyping and real-world implementation. This paper introduces an innovative approach\footnote{A lightweight, mock version of the code is available on GitHub at that combines a multi-agent framework with the Network Simulator 3 (ns-3) to automate and optimize the generation, debugging, execution, and analysis of complex 5G network scenarios. Our framework orchestrates a suite of specialized agents -- namely, the Simulation Generation Agent, Test Designer Agent, Test Executor Agent, and Result Interpretation Agent -- using advanced LangChain coordination. The Simulation Generation Agent employs a structured chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning process, leveraging LLMs and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to translate natural language simulation specifications into precise ns-3 scripts. Concurrently, the Test Designer Agent generates comprehensive automated test suites by integrating knowledge retrieval techniques with dynamic test case synthesis. The Test Executor Agent dynamically deploys and runs simulations, managing dependencies and parsing detailed performance metrics. At the same time, the Result Interpretation Agent utilizes LLM-driven analysis to extract actionable insights from the simulation outputs. By integrating external resources such as library documentation and ns-3 testing frameworks, our experimental approach can enhance simulation accuracy and adaptability, reducing reliance on extensive programming expertise. A detailed case study using the ns-3 5G-LENA module validates the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The code generation process converges in an average of 1.8 iterations, has a syntax error rate of 17.0%, a mean response time of 7.3 seconds, and receives a human evaluation score of 7.5.

cs.NI

MIMO in network simulators: Design, implementation and evaluation of single-user MIMO in ns-3 5G-LENA

MIMO technology has been studied in textbooks for several decades, and it has been adopted in 4G and 5G systems. Due to the recent evolution in 5G and beyond networks, designed to cover a wide range of use cases with every time more complex applications, it is essential to have network simulation tools (such as ns-3) to evaluate MIMO performance from the network perspective, before real implementation. Up to date, the well-known ns-3 simulator has been missing the inclusion of single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO) models for 5G. In this paper, we detail the implementation models and provide an exhaustive evaluation of SU-MIMO in the 5G-LENA module of ns-3. As per 3GPP 5G, we adopt a hybrid beamforming architecture and a closed-loop MIMO mechanism and follow all 3GPP specifications for MIMO implementation, including channel state information feedback with precoding matrix indicator and rank indicator reports, and codebook-based precoding following Precoding Type-I (used for SU-MIMO). The simulation models are released in open-source and currently support up to 32 antenna ports and 4 streams per user. The simulation results presented in this paper help in testing and verifying the simulated models, for different multi-antenna array and antenna ports configurations.

cs.NI

Measuring Data Similarity for Efficient Federated Learning: A Feasibility Study

In multiple federated learning schemes, a random subset of clients sends in each round their model updates to the server for aggregation. Although this client selection strategy aims to reduce communication overhead, it remains energy and computationally inefficient, especially when considering resource-constrained devices as clients. This is because conventional random client selection overlooks the content of exchanged information and falls short of providing a mechanism to reduce the transmission of semantically redundant data. To overcome this challenge, we propose clustering the clients with the aid of similarity metrics, where a single client from each of the formed clusters is selected in each round to participate in the federated training. To evaluate our approach, we perform an extensive feasibility study considering the use of nine statistical metrics in the clustering process. Simulation results reveal that, when considering a scenario with high data heterogeneity of clients, similarity-based clustering can reduce the number of required rounds compared to the baseline random client selection. In addition, energy consumption can be notably reduced from 23.93% to 41.61%, for those similarity metrics with an equivalent number of clients per round as the baseline random scheme.

cs.DC

Deep Attention Recognition for Attack Identification in 5G UAV scenarios: Novel Architecture and End-to-End Evaluation

Despite the robust security features inherent in the 5G framework, attackers will still discover ways to disrupt 5G unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations and decrease UAV control communication performance in Air-to-Ground (A2G) links. Operating under the assumption that the 5G UAV communications infrastructure will never be entirely secure, we propose Deep Attention Recognition (DAtR) as a solution to identify attacks based on a small deep network embedded in authenticated UAVs. Our proposed solution uses two observable parameters: the Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR) and the Reference Signal Received Power (RSSI) to recognize attacks under Line-of-Sight (LoS), Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS), and a probabilistic combination of the two conditions. In the tested scenarios, a number of attackers are located in random positions, while their power is varied in each simulation. Moreover, terrestrial users are included in the network to impose additional complexity on attack detection. To improve the systems overall performance in the attack scenarios, we propose complementing the deep network decision with two mechanisms based on data manipulation and majority voting techniques. We compare several performance parameters in our proposed Deep Network. For example, the impact of Long Short-Term-Memory (LSTM) and Attention layers in terms of their overall accuracy, the window size effect, and test the accuracy when only partial data is available in the training process. Finally, we benchmark our deep network with six widely used classifiers regarding classification accuracy. Our algorithms accuracy exceeds 4% compared with the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) classifier in LoS condition and around 3% in the short distance NLoS condition. Considering the proposed deep network, all other classifiers present lower accuracy than XGB.

cs.CR

A Synthetic Dataset for 5G UAV Attacks Based on Observable Network Parameters

Synthetic datasets are beneficial for machine learning researchers due to the possibility of experimenting with new strategies and algorithms in the training and testing phases. These datasets can easily include more scenarios that might be costly to research with real data or can complement and, in some cases, replace real data measurements, depending on the quality of the synthetic data. They can also solve the unbalanced data problem, avoid overfitting, and can be used in training while testing can be done with real data. In this paper, we present, to the best of our knowledge, the first synthetic dataset for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) attacks in 5G and beyond networks based on the following key observable network parameters that indicate power levels: the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and the Signal to Interference-plus-Noise Ratio (SINR). The main objective of this data is to enable deep network development for UAV communication security. Especially, for algorithm development or the analysis of time-series data applied to UAV attack recognition. Our proposed dataset provides insights into network functionality when static or moving UAV attackers target authenticated UAVs in an urban environment. The dataset also considers the presence and absence of authenticated terrestrial users in the network, which may decrease the deep networks ability to identify attacks. Furthermore, the data provides deeper comprehension of the metrics available in the 5G physical and MAC layers for machine learning and statistics research. The dataset will available at link archive-beta.ics.uci.edu

cs.NI

A Convolutional Attention Based Deep Network Solution for UAV Network Attack Recognition over Fading Channels and Interference

When users exchange data with Unmanned Aerial vehicles - (UAVs) over air-to-ground (A2G) wireless communication networks, they expose the link to attacks that could increase packet loss and might disrupt connectivity. For example, in emergency deliveries, losing control information (i.e data related to the UAV control communication) might result in accidents that cause UAV destruction and damage to buildings or other elements in a city. To prevent these problems, these issues must be addressed in 5G and 6G scenarios. This research offers a deep learning (DL) approach for detecting attacks in UAVs equipped with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) receivers on Clustered Delay Line (CDL) channels in highly complex scenarios involving authenticated terrestrial users, as well as attackers in unknown locations. We use the two observable parameters available in 5G UAV connections: the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and the Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR). The prospective algorithm is generalizable regarding attack identification, which does not occur during training. Further, it can identify all the attackers in the environment with 20 terrestrial users. A deeper investigation into the timing requirements for recognizing attacks show that after training, the minimum time necessary after the attack begins is 100 ms, and the minimum attack power is 2 dBm, which is the same power that the authenticated UAV uses. Our algorithm also detects moving attackers from a distance of 500 m.

cs.CR

Calibration of the 5G-LENA System Level Simulator in 3GPP reference scenarios

Due to the rapid technology evolution and standardization activity in the mobile communication networks, there is the need for the research community to be able to develop, test and evaluate new and/or already xisting solutions before industrial or real-network implementation. As such, it is essential to have an open-source tool that provides an alternative solution to that of industrial proprietary simulators that are not available for public usage. ns-3 5G-LENA simulator is an end-to-end open-source NR system-level simulator that allows extensive research to be performed. However, it is of great importance to guarantee that the results obtained using the simulator can be comparable to that of industrial simulators and real networks. For this reason, calibrating the simulator based on 3GPP defined specifications is crucial. Based on the above, in this paper we calibrate the ns-3 5G-LENA simulator according to the 3GPP reference results for NR-based outdoor deployments. Moreover, we explore the REM feature provided by the simulator, to ease the calibration process and understand better the radio environment. Results show the resemblance of the simulator performance to that of simulators used as references by 3GPP.

cs.NI

ns-3 and 5G-LENA Extensions to Support Dual-Polarized MIMO

MIMO spatial multiplexing is an essential feature to increase the communication data rates in current and future cellular systems. Currently, the ns-3 lte module leverages an abstraction model for 2x2 MIMO with spatial multiplexing of two streams; while mmwave and nr modules were lacking the spatial multiplexing option until this work, since the ns-3 models were not supporting the usage of multiple antennas for spatial multiplexing and an abstraction model such as the one used in the lte module is not suitable for the mmWave frequencies. In this paper, we propose, implement and evaluate models for ns-3 and the nr module to enable Dual-Polarized MIMO (DP-MIMO). The proposed extension for the ns-3 supports multiple antennas for DP-MIMO with spatial multiplexing of two streams and can be used by any ns-3 module that is compatible with the ns-3 antenna array-based models, such as nr and mmwave modules. We leverage this ns-3 extension to model DP-MIMO by exploiting dual-polarized antennas and their orthogonality under line-of-sight conditions, as it happens at high-frequency bands, to send the two data streams. The proposed model does not rely on abstraction, as the MIMO model in the ns-3 lte module, and can thus model more realistically the propagation differences of the two streams, correlation, inter-stream interference, and allows design and evaluation of the rank adaptation algorithms. Additionally, we propose and evaluate an adaptive rank adaptation scheme and compare it with a fixed scheme. The developed DP-MIMO spatial multiplexing models for the ns-3 simulator and the nr module are openly available.

cs.NI

New Radio Physical Layer Abstraction for System-Level Simulations of 5G Networks

A physical layer (PHY) abstraction model estimates the PHY performance in system-level simulators to speed up the simulations. This paper presents a PHY abstraction model for 5G New Radio (NR) and its integration into an open-source ns-3 based NR system-level simulator. The model capitalizes on the exponential effective signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) mapping (EESM) and considers the latest NR specification. To generate it, we used an NR-compliant link-level simulator to calibrate the EESM method as well as to obtain SINR-block error rate (BLER) lookup tables for various NR configurations. We also illustrate the usability of the developed model through end-to-end simulations in ns-3, under different NR settings of modulation and coding schemes, hybrid automatic repeat request combining methods, and link adaptation approaches.

cs.IT

Modulation Compression in Next Generation RAN: Air Interface and Fronthaul trade-offs

Modulation compression is a technique considered in the recent Open-RAN (O-RAN) framework, which has continued the 3GPP effort towards the definition of new virtualized and multi-vendor RAN architectures. Basically, fronthaul compression is achieved by means of reducing the modulation order, thus enabling a dramatic reduction of the required fronthaul capacity with a simple technique. In this work, we provide a survey of the architectures, functional splits, and fronthaul compression techniques envisioned in 3GPP and O-RAN. Then, we focus on assessing the trade-offs that modulation compression exhibits in terms of reduced fronthaul capacity versus the impact on the air interface performance, through a dynamic multi-cell system-level simulation. For that, we use an ns-3 based system-level simulator compliant with 5G New Radio (NR) specifications and evaluate different traffic load conditions and NR numerologies. In a multi-cell scenario, our results show that an 82% reduction of the required fronthaul capacity can be achieved with negligible air interface performance degradation by reducing the modulation order down to 64QAM, for different numerologies and load conditions. A higher modulation order reduction without degradation is permitted in low/medium traffic loads (reaching up to 94% fronthaul capacity reduction).

cs.NI

Implementation of A Spatial Channel Model for ns-3

The next generation of wireless networks will feature a more flexible radio access design, integrating multiple new technological solutions (e.g., massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO), millimeter waves) to satisfy different verticals and use cases. The performance evaluation of these networks will require more complex models to represent the interactions of different components of the networks accurately. For example, channel models, which are of paramount importance to precisely characterize the behavior of such systems, need to account for multi-antenna systems and new frequency bands. This paper presents the ns-3 implementation of a spatial channel model for the 0.5-100 GHz spectrum, following the 3GPP Technical Report 38.901. The code, designed to be flexible and easily extensible, is integrated in ns-3's antenna, propagation and spectrum models, and offers the support for the investigation of future wireless systems in ns-3.

cs.NI

NR-U and WiGig Coexistence in 60 GHz Bands

In December 2019, the 3GPP defined the road-map for Release-17, which includes new features on the operation of New Radio (NR) in millimeter-wave bands with highly directional communications systems, i.e., up to 52.6 GHz. In this paper, a system-level simulation based study on the coexistence of NR-based access to unlicensed spectrum (NR-U) and an IEEE technology, i.e., 802.11ad Wireless Gigabit (WiGig), at 60 GHz bands is conducted. For NR-U, an extension of NR Release-15 based model is used such that the 60 GHz regulatory requirements are satisfied. First, the design and capabilities of the developed open source ns-3 based simulator are presented and then end-to-end performance results of coexistence with different channel access mechanisms for NR-U in a 3GPP indoor scenario are discussed. It is shown that NR-U with Listen-Before-Talk channel access mechanism does not have any adverse impact on WiGig performance in terms of throughput and latency, which demonstrates that NR-U design fulfills the fairness coexistence objective, i.e., NR-U and WiGig coexistence is proven to be feasible.

cs.IT

An E2E Simulator for 5G NR Networks

As the specification of the new 5G NR standard proceeds inside 3GPP, the availability of a versatile, full-stack, End-to-End (E2E), and open source simulator becomes a necessity to extract insights from the recently approved 3GPP specifications. This paper presents an extension to ns-3, a well-known discrete-event network simulator, to support the NR Radio Access Network. The present work describes the design and implementation choices at the MAC and PHY layers, and it discusses a technical solution for managing different bandwidth parts. Finally, we present calibration results, according to 3GPP procedures, and we show how to get E2E performance indicators in a realistic deployment scenario, with special emphasis on the E2E latency.

cs.NI

Wake-Up Radio based Access in 5G under Delay Constraints: Modeling and Optimization

Recently, the concept of wake-up radio based access has been considered as an effective power saving mechanism for 5G mobile devices. In this article, the average power consumption of a wake-up radio enabled mobile device is analyzed and modeled by using a semi-Markov process. Building on this, a delay-constrained optimization problem is then formulated, to maximize the device energy-efficiency under given latency requirements, allowing the optimal parameters of the wake-up scheme to be obtained in closed form. The provided numerical results show that, for a given delay requirement, the proposed solution is able to reduce the power consumption by up to 40% compared with an optimized discontinuous reception (DRX) based reference scheme.

cs.IT

New Radio Beam-based Access to Unlicensed Spectrum: Design Challenges and Solutions

This paper elaborates on the design challenges, opportunities, and solutions for New Radio-based access to Unlicensed spectrum (NR-U) by taking into account the beam-based transmissions and the worldwide regulatory requirements. NR-U intends to expand the applicability of 5th generation New Radio access technology to support operation in unlicensed bands by adhering to Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) requirements for accessing the channel. LBT was already adopted by different variants of 4th generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) in unlicensed spectrum, i.e., Licensed-Assisted Access and MulteFire, to guarantee fair coexistence among different radio access technologies. In the case of beam-based transmissions, the NR-U coexistence framework is significantly different as compared to LTE in unlicensed spectrum due to the use of directional antennas, which enhance the spatial reuse but also complicate the interference management. In particular, beam-based transmissions are needed in the unlicensed spectrum at millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands, which is an attractive candidate for NR-U due to its large amount of allocated spectrum. As a consequence, some major design principles need to be revisited to address coexistence for beam-based NR-U. In this paper, different problems and the potential solutions related to channel access procedures, frame structure, initial access procedures, re-transmission procedures, and scheduling schemes are discussed. A simulation evaluation of different LBT-based channel access procedures for NR-U/Wi-Fi indoor mmWave coexistence scenarios is also provided.

cs.NI

Listen Before Receive for Coexistence in Unlicensed mmWave Bands

Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) has been adopted as the spectrum sharing technique that guarantees a fair LTE/Wi-Fi coexistence in the unlicensed spectrum at the 5 GHz band. Differently, at mmWave bands, where beamforming is a must to overcome propagation limits, LBT scope becomes limited because the interference layout changes due to the directionality of transmissions. In this regard, this paper proposes a Listen-Before-Receive (LBR) technique for shared spectrum access and analyzes its potentials to promote a fair coexistence of multiple Radio Access Technologies (RATs) in unlicensed mmWave bands, as, e.g., 5G New Radio (NR) access technology and Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) devices using IEEE 802.11ad/ay standard. Since the less likely but still harmful interference situations with directional transmissions can no longer be detected easily at the transmitter, we believe that the receiver has useful information to be used. The main idea of LBR is that we provide to the receiver a say when it comes to allowing/preventing the access to the channel. In this line, we propose potential implementations of LBR, in conjunction with LBT and the self-contained slot, for NR-based access to unlicensed mmWave bands.

cs.NI