SOLID-B5G
A Massive MIMO Enabled IoT Platform with Network Slicing for Beyond 5G IoV/V2X and Maritime Services

The main goal of the SOLID-B5G project is to develop breakthrough beyond state-of-the-art solutions in orchestration management and control (OMC) of resources, in the context of network slicing and edge computing based on mIoT enabled radio access network (RAN) and core network (CN) for B5G IoV/V2X and maritime applications. The output of this project will be produced based on our cutting-edge research.

Description of the EEA program
The project scope is in full conformity with the EEA Norway Grants CRP Call, aiming at enhancing research-based knowledge development in Romania through long-term collaborations with two Norwegian partners as well as two other eminent third-country partners.

Papers
2021
Abstract: Open-Source MANO (OSM) is an ETSI-hosted project supporting the development of Open-Source Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Management and Orchestration (MANO) software stack aligned with ETSI NFV. Control System Hub (CSH) is an own Software as a Service (SaaS) platform service assurance and analytics for Quality of Service (QoS) or other parameters solution. To outcome the grow demand on IT applications, the enterprises and service providers must build and expand the use of edge and multi-access edge (MEC) compute. This can lead to possible difficulties concerning how to optimum place workloads of network services automation and evaluate the costs. This paper’s intention is to overcome these difficulties and present a deployment and monitor of edge services in three different use-cases which can have the same hardware trail and logical topology.URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9527879&isnumber=9527733
Abstract: Fifth generation (5G) networks offer tremendous opportunities for Internet of things applications by facilitating massive machine-type communications (MTC). As many MTC devices are battery powered and intend to stay often in the sleep or power-saving mode, cell (re)association needs to be performed when a device wakes up. On the other hand, 5G networks are usually deployed as heterogeneous networks consisting of both macro and small cells under which a single device may be covered by multiple radio access technologies (RATs) simultaneously. Therefore, it is imperative to design effective cell association schemes for the purpose of efficient connectivity and resource utilization, especially when a device has multiple connectivity options. In this paper, three cell association schemes are proposed by considering a network scenario where multiple cells and different RATs are available for MTC devices. To perform cell association, received signal strength, channel occupancy status of neighboring cells, and directed handoff capability are considered as the criteria for our scheme design. Through analysis and extensive simulations, we demonstrate that superior system performance could be achieved for a given network by employing a suitable scheme that integrates multiple criteria and considers performance tradeoff. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9482587&isnumber=9482415
Abstract: The paper aims to use machine learning models in SDN network traffic classification and compare their performance. In this sense, a simple SDN architecture was created in which traffic is generated using the ”D-ITG” utility. Traffic data is saved using a processing script and then used for training and testing the machine learning models used. In order to be able to label the traffic based on the groups generated by the unsupervised model we used the supervised model with the best performance. To achieve the highest possible classification performance in the case of the unsupervised classification model, we previously chose the centroids of the groups and made a comparison between the results thus obtained and those resulting from the use of randomly generated centroids which is a new approach and resulted in an accuracy of 83.5 percent, which is better than in the literature, for such a small number of groups.
Abstract: Network slicing enabled by fifth generation (5G) systems has the potential to satisfy diversified service requirements from different vertical industries. As a typical vertical industry, smart distribution grid poses new challenges to communication networks. This paper investigates the behavior of network slicing for smart grid applications in 5G radio access networks with heterogeneous traffic. To facilitate network slicing in such a network, we employ different 5G radio access numerologies for two traffic classes which have distinct radio resource and quality of service requirements. Three multi-dimensional Markov models are developed to assess the transient performance of network slicing for resource allocation with and without traffic priority. Through analysis and simulations, we investigate the effects of smart grid protection and control traffic on other types of parallel traffic sessions as well as on radio resource utilization.URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9617808&isnumber=9617763
Abstract : Vehicles and transportation systems are essential parts of the today society, being driving factors for the development of vehicular networks and associated services. The vehicular-to-everything (V2X) concept comprises several communication modes such as: vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P), vehicle-to-road infrastructure (V2R/V2I), and vehicle-to-network (V2N) (as defined in 3GPP documents). An extension of V2X is Internet of Vehicles (IoV), seen as a global network which includes V2X. The IoV objectives include vehicles driving services but also others – like vehicle traffic management in urban or country areas, automobile production, entertainment services, road infrastructure construction and repair, etc.
The fifth generation 5G technology is a strong candidate to support the IoV/V2X communications and services. 5G offers highly flexible and programmable end-to-end communication, networking, and computing infrastructures achieving high performance (throughput, latency, reliability, capacity, and mobility). 5G network slicing (with logical, and mutually isolated networks sharing the same physical infrastructure) can serve different classes of applications. Dedicated 5G slices can be constructed for V2X use cases, to meet their special requirements (e.g., low latency, high reliability, security, throughput, mobility). However, the high dynamicity of the environment and the complexity of V2X services, ask for edge-oriented computing infrastructures.
This keynote presentation provides an overview on edge computing support for V2X/IoV communications and especially the integration of Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) in the 5G systems including and slice – based architectures.
Abstract : Identification of ecosystems and Business Models (BM) is an important starting point for new complex system development. The definition of actor (or stakeholder) roles and their interactions (at both business and technical levels), together with target scenarios and use cases, provide essential input information for further system requirement collection and architecture specification. The powerful and flexible Fifth Generation (5G) network slicing technology, which is capable of creating virtually isolated and logically parallel networks, enables a large range of complex services and vertical applications. Although various terminologies and models have been proposed in recent years for BMs in the 5G domain by many studies, projects, standards, and technical specifications from dedicated organizations, they are not always consistent with each other. This study presents an overview and comparison of different BMs for 5G sliced systems, followed by an example on BM definition for a 5G system in a novel ongoing European research project. While a general ecosystem and business model could involve a large range of organizations (including, e.g., regulation and standardization bodies), the scope of this article will be limited to primarily 5G operational BMs, with a focus on those actors or stakeholders who are active and interacting during real-life system operation. Within the project, we perform a selection among some tailored BM configurations, adapted for dedicated slices with different service requirements, aiming to serve Vehicle to Everything (V2X) and Internet of Vehicles (IoV) applications as well as Internet of Things (IoT) for maritime vertical applications. The final part of this article presents our proposed IoT connectivity solutions for various maritime scenarios with and without involving satellite links. Furthermore, we shed light on future challenges and directions for network slicing in beyond 5G systems.
Abstract : Heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets) are one of the key enabling technologies for fifth generation (5 G) networks. In HetNets, the use of small base stations (SBSs) inside the coverage area of a macro base station (MBS) offers higher throughput and improved coverage. However, such multi-tier base station deployment introduces new challenges, e.g., (i) All users experience significant inter-cell interference (ICI) due to frequency reuse, (ii) SBS associated users experience severe MBS-interference due to higher MBS transmit power, and (iii) MBS coverage edge users receive lower signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) due to longer distances. To address the aforementioned challenges, this work proposes a framework, including a novel cell deployment strategy, which combines Stienen’s model with soft frequency reuse (SFR) and the corresponding performance analysis. According to Stienen’s cell based SBS deployment, SBSs are deployed in MBS coverage edge area to enhance downlink SIR. To further mitigate ICI and MBS-interference, SFR is employed along with Stienen’s cell based SBS deployment. Based on stochastic geometry, we derive expressions for coverage probability with four different types of cell deployment and SFR employment combinations. Numerical results indicate that SFR-enabled Stienen’s cell based SBS deployment leads to enhanced edge user coverage and, hence, improves network performance gain.
Abstract: Although grant-based mechanisms have been a predominant approach for wireless access for years, the additional latency required for initial handshake message exchange and the extra control overhead for packet transmissions have stimulated the emergence of grant-free (GF) transmission. GF access provides a promising mechanism for carrying low and moderate traffic with small data and fits especially well for massive machine type communications (mMTC) applications. Despite a surge of interest in GF access, how to handle heterogeneous mMTC traffic based on GF mechanisms has not been investigated in depth. In this paper, we propose a priority enabled GF access scheme which performs dynamic slot allocation in each 5G new radio subframe to devices with different priority levels on a subframe-by-subframe basis. While high priority traffic has access privilege for slot occupancy, the remaining slots in the same subframe will be allocated to low priority traffic. To evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme, we develop a two-dimensional Markov chain model which integrates these two types of traffic via a pseudo-aggregated process. Furthermore, the model is validated through simulations and the performance of the scheme is evaluated both analytically and by simulations and compared with two other GF access schemes.URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9335255&isnumber=9433469
Abstract: Currently, the use of unmanned vehicles, such as drones, boats and ships, in monitoring tasks where human presence is difficult or even impossible raises several issues. Continuous efforts to improve the autonomy of such vehicles have not solved all aspects of this issue. In an Internet of Unmanned Vehicles (IoUV) environment, the idea of replacing the static wireless infrastructure and reusing the mobile monitoring nodes in different conditions would converge to a dynamic solution to assure data collection in areas where there is no infrastructure that ensures Internet access. The current paper fills a significant gap, proposing an algorithm that optimises the positions of unmanned vehicles such that an ad hoc network is deployed to serve specific wireless sensor networks that have no other Internet connectivity (hilly/mountainous areas, Danube Delta) and must be connected to an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. The algorithm determines the optimum positions of UV nodes that decrease the path losses below the link budget threshold with minimum UV node displacement compared to their initial coordinates. The algorithm was tested in a rural scenario and 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), free space and two-ray propagation models. The paper proposes another type of network, a Flying and Surface Ad Hoc Network (FSANET), a concept which implies collaboration and coexistence between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) and several use cases that motivate the need for such a network.
Abstract : Recent advancements in information and communication technologies (ICT) have improved the power grid, leading to what is known as the smart grid, which, as part of a critical economic and social infrastructure, is vulnerable to security threats from the use of ICT and new emerging vulnerabilities and privacy issues. Access control is a fundamental element of a security infrastructure, and security is based on the principles of less privilege, zero-trust, and segregation of duties. This work addresses how access control can be applied without disrupting the power grid’s functioning while also properly maintaining the security, scalability, and interoperability of the smart grid. The authentication in the platform presumes digital certificates using a web of trust. This paper presents the findings of the SealedGRID project, and the steps taken for implementing Attribute-based access control policies specifically customized to the smart grid. The outcome is to develop a novel, hierarchical architecture composed of different licensing entities that manages access to resources within the network infrastructure. They are based on well-drawn policy rules and the security side of these resources is placed through a context awareness module. Together with this technology, the IoT is used with Big Data (facilitating easy handling of large databases). Another goal of this paper is to present implementation and evaluations details of a secure and scalable security platform for the smart grid.
Abstract : Farming livestock—cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and chickens—contributes to the air pollution of the atmosphere. Agricultural air pollution comes mainly in the form of ammonia, which enters the air as a gas from heavily fertilized fields and livestock waste. A reduction in air pollutants from the livestock sector can be achieved by reducing production and consumption, lowering the emission intensity of production, or combining the two. This work proposes an approach for assessing the air pollutant emissions derived from intensive cattle farming. For doing this, the animal feed, the animal behavior, and characteristics and the stable environment data are monitored and collected by a cloud platform. Specifically, Internet of Things (IoT) devices are installed in the farm and key air pollutant parameters from the stable environment (such as CO, NH3, PM1, PM2.5, PM10) are monitored. In this scope, a study about monitoring air pollutants is conducted, showing the most relevant platforms used in this domain. Additionally, the paper presents a comparison between the estimated and monitored air pollutants (AP), showing the fluctuation of the measured parameters. The key takeaway of the study is that ammonia concentration has a higher level during the night, being influenced by the ventilation system of the farm
Abstract: Smart cities have frontline responsibility to ensure a secure and safe physical and digital ecosystem promoting cohesive and sustainable urban development for the wellbeing of human beings. In this paper, we propose to integrate advanced technological solutions in a market-oriented unified Cyber–Physical Security Management framework, aiming at raising the resilience of cities’ infrastructures, services, ICT, IoT, and fostering intelligence and information sharing among city’s security. The project we implement, “Smart Spaces Safety and Security for All Cities” (S4ALLCITIES), is dealing with Systems of Systems Architecture to deploy and validate its intelligent components and functionalities on actual environment, ensuring the delivery of solutions and services in line with smart cities emerging requirements, focused on: risk-based open smart spaces security management; cyber security shielding; and behavior tracking; real-time estimation of cyber-physical risks in multiple locations and measures activation for effective crisis management. URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9637717&isnumber=9637710
Abstract: The research work aims to design a decentralized decision-making mechanism with the help of data processing capacity and intelligence to the edge, to develop 5G network slicing methods, algorithms, and protocols and implement a proof-of-concept standalone B5G. The V2X and satellite-based maritime low-latency services are targeted. The paper will present how multiple wireless accessing technologies are designed to provide connectivity in vehicular networks and cellular communications using IoT. Recently, cellular V2X was standardized and developed for automotive services. V2X supports two communication modes through a single platform to provide both Wi-Fi and cellular communication. 5G-new radio is expected to address the automotive capabilities, improvement, and services for the 21st century. 5G-NR becomes a competitive technology compared to other wireless technologies due to high reliability, high capacity, extensive coverage, increased and minor delay. We optimize 5G with V2X and analyze the current V2X standards, introducing the development of 5G and considering its challenges, features, requirements, design, and technologies. We use Libelium smart city solutions for traffic measurements to analyze the congestion of vehicles or pedestrians by anonymously detecting and tracking the MAC addresses of the user’s devices on the road. URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9663700&isnumber=9663417
Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications and Internet of Vehicles involve complex multi-actor systems that cooperate in order to support vehicles capabilities to exchange data with other entities (vehicles, infrastructure, grid, pedestrians, etc.). The V2X services mainly aim to improve the transport, safety and comfort on the roads and also to suport autonomous driving. The 5G technology can provide a powerful support for V2X, in multi-tenant, multidomain, multi-operator and end-to-end contexts. Particularly, using the 5G slicing capabilities, one can construct virtual parallel networks (slices) dedicated to different applications and services (verticals). Consequently, 5G dedicated slices can also be built to meet the V2X special requirements. The complexity of the V2X systems (involving many actors) and the multitude of visions led to proposal of many variants of V2X ecosystems and business models comprising several cooperating actors. Defining the business models (BMs -seen mainly from technical point of view) is important; they essentially provide input information for system requirements
identification and architecture definition; for V2X systems this is still an open research topic. This paper is an extension of a previous work presented at IARIA ICNS 2020 Conference. It is focused on so-called operational business model, containing only the actors that are active during the system exploitation and maintenance and not on general business models including economic and financial aspects. The paper analyzes and compare several relevant operational BMs for 5G slicing and discuss how they can be adapted for rich V2X environment. The stakeholder roles and interactions are discussed. Heterogeneity among different BMs is analyzed. Finally, a BM for a V2X system proposed by the authors in a novel 5G-oriented research project is introduced.
Open-Source MANO (OSM) is an ETSI-hosted project supporting the development of Open-Source Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Management and Orchestration (MANO) software stack aligned with ETSI NFV. Control System Hub (CSH) is an own Software as a Service (SaaS) platform service assurance and analytics for Quality of Service (QoS) or other parameters solution. To outcome the grow demand on IT applications, the enterprises and service providers must build and expand the use of edge and multi-access edge (MEC) compute. This can lead to possible difficulties concerning how to optimum place workloads of network services automation and evaluate the costs. This paper’s intention is to overcome these difficulties and present a deployment and monitor of edge services in three different use-cases which can have the same hardware trail and logical topology.
Abstract : Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications, Internet of Vehicles (IoV) based on V2X and their services have been intensively studied and developed in the last decade. The V2X supports a large range of applications, such as safety oriented, vehicular traffic optimization, autonomous driving, infotainment and auxiliary operations in vehicular area. Various stakeholders/actors are playing roles in such a complex system, e.g., regulators, authorities, service or network providers, operators, manufacturers, tenants and end users. Therefore, to specify and design a specific V2X/IoV system, one should first identify the ecosystem actors and then derive in a structured way the system requirements, while
harmonizing needs coming from different entities. The 5G slicing technology is seen as a strong candidate to support V2X
communications, in multi-tenant, multi-domain, multi-operator and end-to-end contexts. The 5G slicing allows
construction of dedicated slices, to meet particular V2X requirements. Given the large variety of environments and
actors involved in a planned V2X system, the identification of the system requirements is a complex process that could
benefit from a structured approach. This paper is an extension of the work presented at IARIA Mobility 2020 Conference. It
contributes to develop a methodology to perform a top-down systematic identification of requirements for a V2X system
supported by 5G dedicated slices. Examples from a recent research project in 5G area are given.
2022
Although the number of massive machine type communications (mMTC) devices covered by a fifth generation (5G) cell could be huge, not all devices are always active. For radio resource allocation, it is vital that a base station has the knowledge on the number of active mMTC devices in each frame. In this paper, we develop a mathematical framework to perform pseudo-Bayesian estimation on the number of active devices within a 5G new radio (NR) subframe. The estimation is performed by the base station on a subframe-by-subframe basis based upon which a transmission permission probability is imposed on active devices for their transmissions in the next subframe. The active devices include both backlogged devices and new arrivals in the current subframe that will attempt for medium access in the next subframe relying on a combination of NR radio resources in both time and frequency domains. Such an estimation constitutes an important component for the design of grant-free access schemes for mMTC uplink traffic.
A Pseudo-Bayesian Framework for Estimating the Number of Active Devices for Subframe based Grant-Free Access in 5G NR Networks”: Although the number of massive machine type communications (mMTC) devices covered by a fifth generation (5G) cell could be huge, not all devices are always active. For radio resource allocation, it is vital that a base station has the knowledge on the number of active mMTC devices in each frame. In this paper, we develop a mathematical framework to perform pseudo-Bayesian estimation on the number of active devices within a 5G new radio (NR) subframe. The estimation is performed by the base station on a subframe-by-subframe basis based upon which a transmission permission probability is imposed on active devices for their transmissions in the next subframe. The active devices include both backlogged devices and new arrivals in the current subframe that will attempt for medium access in the next subframe relying on a combination of NR radio resources in both time and frequency domains. Such an estimation constitutes an important component for the design of grant-free access schemes for mMTC uplink traffic.
Network slicing is an emerging concept that can provide parallel virtual networks (slices) as dedicated solutions for various tenants. Slices can be built based on the infrastructure with the same hardware, but they are logically isolated from the viewpoint of service provisioning and security. Network Function Virtualization (NFV) plays an essential role in a sliced system by providing the softwarization of the network functions. Powerful orchestration and management functions are important in order to construct run and adapt the complex NFV framework to satisfying the needs of tenants. One popular orchestrator is Open Source MANO project that provides a software stack for orchestration. In this paper, an automated solution to make the process of slice creation with this orchestrator is proposed. The automation platform is developed by using React, a widely used JavaScript framework.
Abstract: In wake-up radio (WuR) enabled Internet of things (IoT) networks, a data communication occurs in a synchronous or asynchronous manner initiated either by a transmitter or receiver. A synchronous transmission is triggered when multiple devices report an event simultaneously, or by a common wake-up call. In this paper, we focus on synchronous transmissions and propose a multicast triggered synchronous transmission protocol, abbreviated as MURIST, which enables contention based and coordinated data transmissions among distributed devices in order to reduce transmissions latency and energy consumption. Furthermore, we develop a novel analytical model based on an absorbing Markov chain to evaluate the performance of MURIST in a network cluster. Unlike existing models that are merely targeted at the behavior of a single device, the novelty of our model resides in a generic framework to assess the behavior of a cluster of devices for synchronous data transmissions. Based on the analytical model, we obtain closed-form expressions for the distributions of successful and discarded transmissions, number of collisions, and delay, as well as for energy consumption. Extensive simulations are performed to validate the accuracy of the analytical model and evaluate the performance of our scheme versus that of two other schemes.URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=9760727&isnumber=4656680
To address the challenges faced by non-orthogonalmultiple access (NOMA) for multiple access in beyond fifth gen-eration (B5G) networks, rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA)has newly emerged as a promising approach. In addition toachieving high data rates, RSMA may be used for massivemachine-type communication (mMTC)/massive Internet of things(mIoT) applications as well. Although RSMA addresses the usercoupling and scheduling overhead problems met by NOMA, itis not clear whether and how RSMA can be applied touplinkmMTC/mIoT traffic. In this study, we explore the applicabilityof RSMA for uplink traffic and investigate whether there is anybenefit to employ RSMA and if yes how this benefit can beachieved. To this end, we propose a novel uplink RSMA schemewith two constituent components, known as inter-device decodingand intra-device decoding, respectively. Through user pairingfor inter-device decoding and power allocation for intra-devicedecoding, we reveal under which circumstances RSMA can bringbenefits for uplink traffic.
The Software Defined Network (SDN) concept has changed the traditional network architecture to achieve higher flexibility, the programmability of the network, the abstraction based on a logically centralized control plane, and the data (forwarding) plane decoupling. The SDN control centralization raises scalability issues. This work focuses on the scalability concerns of the Ryu SDN controller in various scenarios with distinct network topologies like tree and datacenter. Throughout this paper, we assess the consequences of distributing subscriber data requests over the controller performance into different network topologies also using a different number of subscribers. The performance of the Ryu is tested by observing the throughput of the controller. The assessment was accomplished by employing an Iperf traffic generator and Mininet. The paper studies two matters that impact the Ryu throughput: the exponential increase of the number of nodes in tree topology and the adoption of the same condition over a datacenter topology. The experiments involve the two types of topologies mentioned and a topologies size range from 200 to 2000 nodes and assessing the controller performance using the throughput as the performance criterion. The results of this research will be used in a research project oriented to 5G slicing, where the control plane is based on SDN.
IoT devices present an ever-growing domain with multiple applicability. This technology has favored and still favors many areas by creating critical infrastructures that are as profitable as possible. This paper presents a hierarchical architecture composed of different licensing entities that manage access to different resources within a network infrastructure. They are conducted on the basis of well-drawn policy rules. At the same time, the security side of these resources is also placed through a context awareness module. Together with this technology, IoT is used and Blockchain is enabled (for network consolidation, as well as the transparency with which to monitor the platform). The ultimate goal is to implement a secure and scalable security platform for the Smart Grid. The paper presents the work undertaken in the SealedGRID project and the steps taken for implementing security policies specifically tailored to the Smart Grid, based on advanced concepts such as Opinion Dynamics and Smart Grid-related Attribute-based Access Control
Distributed multi-controller deployments are explored in large SDN-controlled networks to achieve the control plane scalability and reliability. There are many types of research on the Controller Selection or Placement Problem (CSP/CPP). The majority of studies consider a static approach to optimize the controller placement and a static mapping of switches to controllers. However, in a dynamic topology (susceptible to controller overload, nodes, or link failure), the initial mapping of the forwarders-to-controllers and even the controller placement could become nonoptimal, w.r.t. QoS service requirements. The flow of data through multiple controllers could vary following an unequal distribution of the load between multiple controllers. To overcome the aforementioned challenge, a solution could be a limited dynamic switch migration if controller overload is detected. The contribution of this work-in-progress is a proposal of a powerful condition-aware mechanism for switch migration and its functionality validation. The system considered in this work include the Redis database, Ryu controller, Mininet, and Iperf and introduce the concept of Supervisor controller. Our prototype resolves multiple overloads, simultaneously fixing the load balancing problems within the SDN controller plane.
Automating software orchestration and service development represents the newest trend in the development of fifth generation (5G) core network (CN) as it enables flexible and scalable service deployment. The building blocks for such a trend include Containers, Docker, Kubernetes, and other orchestration methods that facilitate easy scaling, management and control, load balancing, and personalized quality of service. In this paper, we develop a containerized 5G standalone (SA) network, building two types of network topologies for 5G SA deployment based on the concepts of 5G cloud network functions, Docker containers and Linux virtualization. Based on our implementation of both Minimalist Deployment and Basic Deployment, an assessment on the attach procedure is performed through next generation application protocol (NGAP) filtering along with subscriber information. Moreover, emulated transmission control protocol (TCP)/user datagram protocol (UDP) traffic is injected into the network and its performance is evaluated based on metrics such as traffic volume and data rate for both uplink and downlink
To enable emerging applications of fifth generation (5G) systems for vertical scenarios like mobile broadband and Internet of things (IoT) for vehicles and maritime sectors, a new trend towards softwarization and establishment of private networks is gaining momentum. Different from earlier generations of mobile systems where network functions are traditionally operated based on dedicated hardware, 5G infrastructures can be virtualized and services can be provided based on software, common hardware and servers. In this paper, we present an open-source based prototype private network which has been implemented in the framework of an EEA research project SOLID-B5G. The prototype network is a 5G non-standalone (NSA) network with a fourth generation (4G) evolved packet core (EPC) connecting both evolved NodeB (eNB) and next generation NodeB (gNB) to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) user equipment (UE). The prototype is implemented based on two popular open-source software platforms, namely OAI RAN and srsRAN. Based on our implementations, extensive experiments have been conducted to assess the performance of the prototype network in terms of downlink/uplink throughput and latency between different parts of the system.
Network slicing is a novel fifth generation (5G) concept that enables operators to create logical networks (slices), each dedicated to certain specific applications, on top of a common network infrastructure, computation and storage resources. These slices are logically isolated from each other with respect to network performance and security, providing services to vertical industries and various use cases. Accordingly, an orchestrator is needed in order to manage network resources for various slices. Among different orchestrators that have been developed, open source MANO (OSM) appears as a popular platform, providing a software stack for slice developers. In this paper, we present an implementation of deploying network slices based on the OSM automation platform and report preliminary experiments that have been performed. To validate our implementation, a specific media streaming use case has been selected and a slice with three pre-configured network services that contain a media server has been created.
Compared to earlier generations, the Fifth Generation of Communication Networks (5G) proposes a broader range of services, supporting more use cases and applications. In the first section of this paper, we’ll analyze the development of 5G technology, give a brief explanation of the idea, and provide some examples of application fields, namely Artificial Intelligence (AI), Smart Cities, Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, Smart Grid 1.0, and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communication. To address the current network limitations, the development of 6G vision, applications, technologies, and standards has already emerged as a well-liked research topic in academia and the industry. Therefore, in the next section, we will explain the concept of 6G technology and also give examples of application domains, including Internet of Everything (IoE), Smart Grid 2.0, Industry 5.0, Extended Reality (XR), Holographic Telepresence, and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communication.
This poster focuses on 5G applications in the Transport and Logistics (T&L) sector. One of the advantages of these applications is the speed and bandwidth of 5G that allows access to data from both sensors and various smart devices in factories and warehouses. Meanwhile, data traffic is not increasing. Thus, end users can obtain more data in real time, data that is from different systems and smart assets in a unit (example: telematics-enabled lift trucks, drones, conveyor and sortation, camera systems, or motors and pumps compatible with IoT connectivity). All this is highlighted in the VITAL-5G project, which aims to improve the effectiveness of the way T&L verticals interact with the 5G network. This is done by providing innovative platforms and services, which were created to promote these capabilities of the T&L industry and also to have services not known to their customers. In order to achieve everything that the project has proposed, it is necessary to realize first of all, a marketing strategy where a market analysis will be done to see what is the state of the market, then to obtain information, captures market value chain trends and to identify factors and/or barriers in the T&L 5G ecosystem.
Abstract—LoRaWAN-enabled networks represent a paradigmshift from short-range transmissions to long-range connectionsfor various intelligent Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Toensure maximum coverage of LoRaWAN gateways, exhaustiveexperiments have to be performed beforehand for gatewaydeployment. Although simulation based solutions are viable, theobtained results may not reflect on-field propagation and terrainconditions. On the other hand, commercial LoRaWAN networkfield testers are extremely limited in terms of analysis andstatistics capabilities. In this paper, we present an end-to-endIoT platform which encompasses an built-in network coveragetesting facility. The term built-in is used to reveal coverage testingis an in-built functionality. That is, it is not necessary to use anexternal solution to test the coverage of the LoRaWAN network,but the platform provides it by design. The platform is developedbased on open-source software and commercial low-cost, low-power hardware, and it can be applied to various vertical sectorsincluding smart agriculture, maritime applications, environmentmonitoring, and device tracking.
Fifth generation (5G) mobile communication systems are currently being deployed worldwide intensively. Different from earlier generation mobile systems, 5G offers a variety of novel features to satisfy distinct requirements of diverse applications. One of the most innovative aspects of 5G is its potential openness in radio access network (RAN) protocols, allowing RAN elements to be interchangeable and be implemented using open-source software. This flexibility enables developing software solutions based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware for facilitating specific applications. Meanwhile, open-source core networks (CNs) are available to be integrated with RAN software, empowering the softwarization of 5G or beyond 5G (B5G) systems to be completely open-source based. In this paper, we present two prototype implementations including a fourth generation (4G) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system and a 5G non-standalone (NSA) system which are connected to the global Internet. The implementations are performed using two open-source software suites for RAN and CN respectively. Based on the developed prototype systems, extensive experiments are carried out to evaluate the peformance of such networks with respect to connectivity, performance, and service satisfaction.
The Perception layer in Internet of Things (IoT) architectures is responsible for connecting sensor nodes and data acquisition units such that sensing devices capture relevant data from the corresponding environment. Most IoT platforms are designed to transmit data at fixed time intervals, which is a disadvantage in the modern world dominated by rapid changes in the evolution of events. This paper addresses improvements performed on an IoT platform dedicated to critical applications (e.g., fire, air pollution). This novel approach assumes the use of two equations empirically determined to compute the time interval between successive transmissions depending on the detected event. A new method for communication technology selection (LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi or cellular) is implemented and the time interval between two successive transmissions is adjusted according to the occurring event. Comparisons were highlighted for each analyzed case. The proposed method proved to be suitable for critical scenarios or scenarios that can generate false-positive alarms, due to abnormal variations of parameters.
2023
Y. Ren, T. Phung-Duc, J. -C. Chen and F. Y. Li, “Enabling Dynamic Autoscaling for NFV in a Non-Standalone Virtual EPC: Design and Analysis,” in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, doi: 10.1109/TVT.2023.3237698.Abstract: Network function virtualization (NFV) is a novel concept that enables an architectural transition from dedicated hardware to orchestrated resource and function management. As an integral part of the core network, NFV offers a fine-grained network capability to cellular operators by scaling out or scaling in network resources in an on-demand manner to meet the performance requirements. However, designing an autoscaling algorithm with low operation cost and low latency in non-standalone networks, where legacy network equipment coexists with a virtual evolved packet core (EPC), is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a dynamic NFV instance autoscaling algorithm that considers the tradeoff between performance and operation cost. Furthermore, we develop an analytical framework to assess the performance of the scheme by modeling the hybrid network as a queueing system that includes both legacy network equipment and NFV instances. The virtualized network function (VNF) instances are powered on or off according to the number of job requests. Numerical results based on extensive simulations validate the correctness of the model and the effectiveness of the algorithm.URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=10018535&isnumber=4356907