arXiv subjects

Vuk Marojevic

Publications and source records attributed to Vuk Marojevic.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Regulatory Options and Technical Challenges for the 5.9 GHz Spectrum: Survey and Analysis

In 1999, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocated 75 MHz in the 5.9 GHz ITS Band (5850-5925 MHz) for use by Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) to facilitate information transfer between equipped vehicles and roadside systems. This allocation for DSRC in the ITS band has been a co-primary allocation while the band is shared with the Fixed Satellite Service (FSS), fixed microwave service, amateur radio services and other Federal users authorized by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). In recent time, Cellular V2X (C-V2X), introduced in 3GPP Release 14 LTE standard, has received significant attention due to its perceived ability to deliver superior performance with respect to vehicular safety applications. There is a strong momentum in the industry for C-V2X to be considered as a viable alternative to DSRC and accordingly, to operate in the ITS spectrum. In another recent notice, the FCC is soliciting input for a proposed rulemaking to open up more bandwidth for unlicensed Wi-Fi devices, mainly based on the 802.11ac standard. The FCC plans to work with the Department of Transportation (DoT), and the automotive and communications industries to evaluate potential sharing techniques in the ITS band between DSRC and Wi-Fi devices. This paper analyzes the expected scenarios that might emerge from FCC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulation options and identifies the technical challenge associated with each scenario. We also provide a literature survey and find that many of resulting technical challenges remain open research problems that need to be addressed. We conclude that the most challenging issue is related to the interoperability between DSRC and C-V2X in the 5.9 GHz band and the detection and avoidance of harmful adjacent and co-channel interference.

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arXiv2018

Measuring Hardware Impairments with Software-Defined Radios

This Innovative Practice Full Paper introduces a novel tool for educating electrical engineering students about hardware impairments in wireless communications. A radio frequency (RF) front end is an essential part of a wireless transmitter or receiver. It features analog processing components and data converters which are driven by today's digital communication systems. Advancements in computing and software-defined radio (SDR) technology have enabled shaping waveforms in software and using experimental and easily accessible plug-and-play RF front ends for education, research and development. We use this same technology to teach nonlinear effects of RF front ends and their implications. It uses widely available RF instruments and components and SDR technology--well-established affordable hardware and free open source software--to teach students how to characterize the nonlinearity of RF receivers while providing hands-on experience with SDR tools. We present the hardware, software and procedures of our laboratory session that enable easy reproducibility in other classrooms. We discuss different forms of evaluating the suitability of the new class modules and conclude that it provides a valuable learning experience that bolsters the theory that is typically provided in lectures only.

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arXiv2018

A Software Radio Challenge Accelerating Education and Innovation in Wireless Communications

This Innovative Practice Full Paper presents our methodology and tools for introducing competition in the electrical engineering curriculum to accelerate education and innovation in wireless communications. Software radio or software-defined radio (SDR) enables wireless technology, systems and standards education where the student acts as the radio developer or engineer. This is still a huge endeavor because of the complexity of current wireless systems and the diverse student backgrounds. We suggest creating a competition among student teams to potentiate creativity while leveraging the SDR development methodology and open-source tools to facilitate cooperation. The proposed student challenge follows the European UEFA Champions League format, which includes a qualification phase followed by the elimination round or playoffs. The students are tasked to build an SDR transmitter and receiver following the guidelines of the long-term evolution standard. The metric is system performance. After completing this course, the students will be able to (1) analyze alternative radio design options and argue about their benefits and drawbacks and (2) contribute to the evolution of wireless standards. We discuss our experiences and lessons learned with particular focus on the suitability of the proposed teaching and evaluation methodology and conclude that competition in the electrical engineering classroom can spur innovation.

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arXiv2018

Semidefinite Relaxation-Based PAPR-Aware Precoding for Massive MIMO-OFDM Systems

Massive MIMO requires a large number of antennas and the same amount of power amplifiers (PAs), one per antenna. As opposed to 4G base stations, which could afford highly linear PAs, next-generation base stations will need to use inexpensive PAs, which have a limited region of linear amplification. One of the research challenges is effectively handling signals which have high peak-to-average power ratios (PAPRs), such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). This paper introduces a PAPR-aware precoding scheme that exploits the excessive spatial degrees-of-freedom of large scale multiple-input multipleoutput (MIMO) antenna systems. This typically requires finding a solution to a nonconvex optimization problem. Instead of relaxing the problem to minimize the peak power, we introduce a practical semidefinite relaxation (SDR) framework that enables accurately and efficiently approximating the theoretical PAPR-aware precoding performance for OFDM-based massive MIMO systems. The framework allows incorporating channel uncertainties and intercell coordination. Numerical results show that several orders of magnitude improvements can be achieved w.r.t. state of the art techniques, such as instantaneous power consumption reduction and multiuser interference cancellation. The proposed PAPRaware precoding can be effectively handled along with the multicell signal processing by the centralized baseband processing platforms of next-generation radio access networks. Performance can be traded for the computing efficiency for other platforms

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arXiv2018

C-V2X Security Requirements and Procedures: Survey and Research Directions

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) defines the first specifications for cellular-based vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) communications in Release 14. C-V2X extends LTE's device-to-device communication modes by adding two new modes of operation for vehicular systems in coverage and out of coverage of an LTE base station, or eNB. The vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication mode does not rely on the cellular infrastructure and the C-V2X devices employ a distributed and sensing-based semi-persistent scheduling to schedule their packet transmissions. As a promising alternative to dedicated short range communications, the security aspects of C-V2X need to be carefully designed and evaluated to ensure the availability and integrity of the service and data. This paper discusses possible threat scenarios, reviews the 3GPP specifications and finds that, despite the safety-critical nature of C-V2X, only few mechanisms and procedures have be specified to secure the system. We discuss emerging technologies and provide research directions to improve C-V2X system security and reliability and ensure their widespread adoption in civilian and mission-critical communication contexts.

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arXiv2018

Teaching Telecommunication Standards - Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice

Telecommunication standards have become a reliable mechanism to strengthen collaboration between industry and research institutions to accelerate the evolution of communications systems. Standards are needed to enable cooperation while promoting competition. Within the framework of a standard, the companies involved in the standardization process contribute and agree on appropriate technical specifications to ensure diversity, compatibility and facilitate worldwide commercial deployment and evolution. Those parts of the system that can create competitive advantages are intentionally left open in the specifications. Such specifications are extensive, complex and minimalistic. This makes the telecommunication standards education a difficult endeavor, but it is much demanded by industry and governments to spur economic growth. This paper describes a methodology for teaching wireless communications standards. We define our methodology around six learning stages that assimilate the standardization process and identify key learning objectives for each. Enabled by software-defined radio technology we describe a practical learning environment that facilitates developing many of the needed technical and soft skills without the inherent difficulty and cost associated with radio frequency components and regulation. Using only open-source software and commercial off-the-shelf computers, this environment is portable and can easily be recreated at other educational institutions and adapted to their educational needs and constraints. We discuss our and our students' experiences when employing the proposed methodology to 4th generation (4G) long-term-evolution (LTE) standard education at Barcelona Tech.

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arXiv2018

Creating Tailored and Adaptive Network Services with the Open Orchestration C-RAN Framework

Next generation wireless communications networks will leverage software-defined radio and networking technologies, combined with cloud and fog computing. A pool of resources can then be dynamically allocated to create personalized network services (NSs). The enabling technologies are abstraction, virtualization and consolidation of resources, automatization of processes, and programmatic provisioning and orchestration. ETSI's network functions virtualization (NFV) management and orchestration (MANO) framework provides the architecture and specifications of the management layers. We introduce OOCRAN, an open-source software framework and testbed that extends existing NFV management solutions by incorporating the radio communications layers. This paper presents OOCRAN and illustrates how it monitors and manages the pool of resources for creating tailored NSs. OOCRAN can automate NS reconfiguration, but also facilitates user control. We demonstrate the dynamic deployment of cellular NSs and discuss the challenges of dynamically creating and managing tailored NSs on shared infrastructure.

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arXiv2018

5G-CORNET: Platform as a Service

Practical testing of the latest wireless communications standards requires the availability of flexible radio frequency hardware, networking and computing resources. We are providing a Cloud-based infrastructure which offers the necessary resources to carry out tests of the latest 5G standards. The testbed provides a Cloud-based Infrastructure as a Service. The research community can access hardware and software resources through a virtual plat-form that enables isolation and customization of experiments. In other words, researchers have control over the preferred experimental architecture and can run concurrent experiments on the same testbed. This paper introduces the resources that can be used to develop 5G testbeds and experiments.

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arXiv2018

Rate-Maximizing OFDM Pilot Patterns for UAV Communications in Nonstationary A2G Channels

In this paper, we propose and evaluate rate-maximizing pilot configurations for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) communications employing OFDM waveforms. OFDM relies on pilot symbols for effective communications. We formulate a rate-maximization problem in which the pilot spacing (in the time-frequency resource grid) and power is varied as a function of the time-varying channel statistics. The receiver solves this rate-maximization problem, and the optimal pilot spacing and power are explicitly fed back to the transmitter to adapt to the time-varying channel statistics in an air-to-ground (A2G) environment. We show the enhanced throughput performance of this scheme for UAV communications in sub-6 GHz bands. These performance gains are achieved at the cost of very low computational complexity and feedback requirements, making it attractive for A2G UAV communications in 5G.

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arXiv2018

UAV-aided Multi-Way Communications

Multi-way and device-to-device (D2D) communications are currently considered for the design of future communication systems. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be effectively deployed to extend the communication range of D2D networks. To model the UAV-D2D interaction, we study a multi-antenna multi-way channel with two D2D users and an intermittently available UAV node. The performance in terms of sum-rate of various transmission schemes is compared. Numerical results show that for different ground environments, the scheme based on a combination of interference alignment, zero-forcing and erasure-channel treatment outperforms other schemes at low, medium and high SNRs and thus represents a viable transmission strategy for UAV-aided multi-way D2D networks.

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arXiv2018

Performance Analysis of Sensing-Based Semi-Persistent Scheduling in C-V2X Networks

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project released the cellular vehicular-to-everything (C-V2X) specifications as part of the LTE framework in Release 14. C-V2X is the alternative to dedicated short range communications and both are specifically designed for V2X control signaling. C-V2X extends the device-to-device specifications by adding two more modes of operation targeting the vehicular environment in coverage and out of coverage of LTE base stations. Vehicle-to-vehicle communications (V2V) is established with Mode 4, where the devices schedule their transmissions in a distributed way employing sensing-based semi-persistent scheduling (SPS). Research is needed to assess the performance of SPS, especially in congested radio environments. This paper presents the first open-source C-V2X simulator that enables such research. The simulator is implemented in ns-3. We analyze the effect of the Mode 4 resource pool configuration and some of the key SPS parameters on the scheduling performance and find that the resource reservation interval significantly influences packet data rate performance, whereas resource reselection probability has little effect in dense vehicular highway scenarios. Our results show that proper configuration of scheduling parameters can significantly improve performance. We conclude that research on congestion control mechanisms is needed to further enhance the SPS performance for many practical use cases.

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arXiv2018

5G NR Jamming, Spoofing, and Sniffing: Threat Assessment and Mitigation

In December 2017, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) released the first set of specifications for 5G New Radio (NR), which is currently the most widely accepted 5G cellular standard. 5G NR is expected to replace LTE and previous generations of cellular technology over the next several years, providing higher throughput, lower latency, and a host of new features. Similar to LTE, the 5G NR physical layer consists of several physical channels and signals, most of which are vital to the operation of the network. Unfortunately, like for any wireless technology, disruption through radio jamming is possible. This paper investigates the extent to which 5G NR is vulnerable to jamming and spoofing, by analyzing the physical downlink and uplink control channels and signals. We identify the weakest links in the 5G NR frame, and propose mitigation strategies that should be taken into account during implementation of 5G NR chipsets and base stations.

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arXiv2018

Deep Predictive Coding Neural Network for RF Anomaly Detection in Wireless Networks

Intrusion detection has become one of the most critical tasks in a wireless network to prevent service outages that can take long to fix. The sheer variety of anomalous events necessitates adopting cognitive anomaly detection methods instead of the traditional signature-based detection techniques. This paper proposes an anomaly detection methodology for wireless systems that is based on monitoring and analyzing radio frequency (RF) spectrum activities. Our detection technique leverages an existing solution for the video prediction problem, and uses it on image sequences generated from monitoring the wireless spectrum. The deep predictive coding network is trained with images corresponding to the normal behavior of the system, and whenever there is an anomaly, its detection is triggered by the deviation between the actual and predicted behavior. For our analysis, we use the images generated from the time-frequency spectrograms and spectral correlation functions of the received RF signal. We test our technique on a dataset which contains anomalies such as jamming, chirping of transmitters, spectrum hijacking, and node failure, and evaluate its performance using standard classifier metrics: detection ratio, and false alarm rate. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed methodology effectively detects many unforeseen anomalous events in real time. We discuss the applications, which encompass industrial IoT, autonomous vehicle control and mission-critical communications services.

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arXiv2018

A Digital Predistortion Scheme Exploiting Degrees-of-Freedom for Massive MIMO Systems

The primary source of nonlinear distortion in wireless transmitters is the power amplifier (PA). Conventional digital predistortion (DPD) schemes use high-order polynomials to accurately approximate and compensate for the nonlinearity of the PA. This is not practical for scaling to tens or hundreds of PAs in massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. There is more than one candidate precoding matrix in a massive MIMO system because of the excess degrees-of-freedom (DoFs), and each precoding matrix requires a different DPD polynomial order to compensate for the PA nonlinearity. This paper proposes a low-order DPD method achieved by exploiting massive DoFs of next-generation front ends. We propose a novel indirect learning structure which adapts the channel and PA distortion iteratively by cascading adaptive zero forcing precoding and DPD. Our solution uses a 3rd order polynomial to achieve the same performance as the conventional DPD using an 11th order polynomial for a 100x10 massive MIMO configuration. Experimental results show a 70% reduction in computational complexity, enabling ultra-low latency communications.

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arXiv2017

Open Orchestration Cloud Radio Access Network (OOCRAN) Testbed

The Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) offers a revolutionary approach to cellular network deployment, management and evolution. Advances in software-defined radio (SDR) and networking technology, moreover, enable delivering software-defined everything through the Cloud. Resources will be pooled and dynamically allocated leveraging abstraction, virtualization, and consolidation techniques; processes will be automated using common application programming interfaces; and network functions and services will be programmatically provided through an orchestrator. OOCRAN, oocran.dynu.com, is a software framework that is based on the NFV MANO architecture proposed by ETSI. It provides an orchestration layer for the entire wireless infrastructure, including hardware, software, spectrum, fronthaul and backhaul. OOCRAN extends existing NFV management frameworks by incorporating the radio communications layers and their management dependencies. The wireless infrastructure provider can then dynamically provision virtualized wireless networks to wireless service providers. The testbed's physical infrastructure is built around a computing cluster that executes open-source SDR libraries and connects to SDR-based remote radio heads. We demonstrate the operation of OOCRAN and discuss the temporal implications of dynamic LTE small cell network deployments.

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arXiv2017

Sustainable Green Networking: Exploiting Degrees of Freedom towards Energy-Efficient 5G Systems

The carbon footprint concern in the development and deployment of 5G new radio systems has drawn the attention to several stakeholders. In this article, we analyze the critical power consuming component of all candidate 5G system architectures-the power amplifier (PA)-and propose PA-centric resource management solutions for green 5G communications. We discuss the impact of ongoing trends in cellular communications on sustainable green networking and analyze two communications architectures that allow exploiting the extra degrees-of-freedom (DoF) from multi-antenna and massive antenna deployments: small cells/distributed antenna network and massive MIMO. For small cell systems with a moderate number of antennas, we propose a peak to average power ratio-aware resource allocation scheme for joint orthogonal frequency and space division multiple access. For massive MIMO systems, we develop a highly parallel recurrent neural network for energy-efficient precoding. Simulation results for representative 5G deployment scenarios demonstrate an energy efficiency improvement of one order of magnitude or higher with respect to current state-of-the-art solutions.

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arXiv2017

LTE Spectrum Sharing Research Testbed: Integrated Hardware, Software, Network and Data

This paper presents Virginia Tech's wireless testbed supporting research on long-term evolution (LTE) signaling and radio frequency (RF) spectrum coexistence. LTE is continuously refined and new features released. As the communications contexts for LTE expand, new research problems arise and include operation in harsh RF signaling environments and coexistence with other radios. Our testbed provides an integrated research tool for investigating these and other research problems; it allows analyzing the severity of the problem, designing and rapidly prototyping solutions, and assessing them with standard-compliant equipment and test procedures. The modular testbed integrates general-purpose software-defined radio hardware, LTE-specific test equipment, RF components, free open-source and commercial LTE software, a configurable RF network and recorded radar waveform samples. It supports RF channel emulated and over-the-air radiated modes. The testbed can be remotely accessed and configured. An RF switching network allows for designing many different experiments that can involve a variety of real and virtual radios with support for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna operation. We present the testbed, the research it has enabled and some valuable lessons that we learned and that may help designing, developing, and operating future wireless testbeds.

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arXiv2017

Coexistence between Communication and Radar Systems - A Survey

Data traffic demand in cellular networks has been tremendously growing and has led to creating congested RF environment. Accordingly, innovative approaches for spectrum sharing have been proposed and implemented to accommodate several systems within the same frequency band. Spectrum sharing between radar and communication systems is one of the important research and development areas. In this paper, we present the fundamental spectrum sharing concepts and technologies, then we provide an updated and comprehensive survey of spectrum sharing techniques that have been developed to enable some of the wireless communication systems to coexist in the same band as radar systems.

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