Energy-efficient space–air–ground integrated networks (SAGINs) are vital for sustainable communications. This study presents an energy-aware SAGIN framework that utilizes a uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV)-mounted mobile edge computing (MEC) platform enhanced by digital-twin technology, UAV energy harvesting via wireless power transfer, and a nano-satellite constellation with MEC facilities. We formulate a joint optimization problem for UAV trajectory planning, task offloading, computational resource allocation, and satellite load balancing as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem that minimizes the weighted system cost while satisfying energy and latency constraints. To address this complex problem, two quantum-driven deep reinforcement learning (QD-DRL) algorithms namely quantum-driven cost-effective advantage actor–critic (QD-CE-A2C) and quantum-driven cost-effective proximal policy optimization (QD-CE-PPO) are proposed. These algorithms employ angle encoding with learnable parameters and variational quantum neural networks to enhance policy exploration and accelerate convergence. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed QD-DRL approaches achieve superior cost efficiency and ensure effective service to all access points within the defined mission duration. Moreover, QD-DRL approaches achieved higher cumulative rewards and faster convergence compared to classical DRL baselines. Consequently, the proposed frameworks provide a scalable and intelligent paradigm for cost-efficient resource management in future 6G-enabled SAGINs.

Mega-constellations of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites are envisioned to deliver global broadband and direct-to-cell services, requiring seamless handovers (HOs) to ensure uninterrupted connectivity. Conventional break-before-make HO protocols, although supported by inter-satellite links, suffer from beamforming delays due to the high orbital velocities of LEO satellites. To address these limitations, we propose an integrated sensing and communication (ISAC)-assisted HO (ISAC-HO) protocol that enables make-before-break HOs via ISAC-enabled ground terminals (GTs). A novel ISAC design capable of generating a three-dimensional (3D) beampattern under realistic conditions allows GTs to sense approaching LEO satellites without significantly compromising communication with the currently serving LEO satellite. The design problem is highly challenging due to its non-convexity and mixed-integer nature. To tackle these challenges, we propose an approach that leverages Riemannian manifold optimization and closed-form solutions. For multi-GT scenarios, we introduce a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning framework that mitigates sensing collisions and ensures quality-of-service under shared spectrum constraints. Numerical results confirm that the proposed ISAC design significantly improves the communication–sensing trade-off, enables smooth HO, and remains robust in the presence of imperfect channel state information.

peer reviewed

This paper addresses the joint optimization of trajectories and bandwidth allocation for multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to enhance energy efficiency in the cooperative data collection problem. We focus on an important yet underestimated aspect of the system, where action synchronization across all UAVs is impossible. Since most existing learning-based solutions are not designed to learn in this asynchronous environment, we formulate the trajectory planning problem as a Decentralized Partially Observable Semi-Markov Decision Process and introduce an asynchronous multi-agent learning algorithm to learn UAVs’ cooperative policies. Once the UAVs’ trajectory policies are learned, the bandwidth allocation can be optimally solved based on local observations at each collection point. Comprehensive empirical results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over other learning-based and heuristic baselines in terms of both energy efficiency and mission completion time. Additionally, the learned policies exhibit robustness under varying environmental conditions.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) offers exceptionally high levels of data security during transmission by using principles of quantum physics. It is renowned for its provable security features. However, a gap between theoretical models and real-world applications, known as quantum hacking, challenges the reliability of QKD networks. Trojan-horse attacks represent a significant threat to the Bob subsystem in QKD, allowing Eve to infer Alice’s basis choices through back-reflected pulses. This can compromise security without detection in severe cases, especially when quantum bit error rates (QBER) fall below the abort threshold. The proposed method combines a category-based Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to estimate the posterior QBER distribution and assess risks in practical QKD systems. By processing the QBER, the approach also evaluates the dependability of the QKD scenario. Numerical results are presented using a state-of-the-art point-to-point QKD device operating over optical quantum channels of 1 m, 1 km, and 30 km lengths. The results of the experimental analysis of a 30 km optical link suggest that the QKD device provided prior information to the proposed learner. Consequently, our proposed trustworthy monitor offers a defensive mechanism that identifies potential Eve attacks, effectively mitigating the risk of security vulnerabilities.

This work proposes a framework for the robust design of UAV-assisted wireless networks that combine 3D trajectory optimization with user mobility prediction to address dynamic resource allocation challenges. We proposed a sparse second-order prediction model for real-time user tracking coupled with heuristic user clustering to balance service quality and computational complexity. The joint optimization problem is formulated to maximize the minimum rate. It is then decomposed into user association, 3D trajectory design, and resource allocation subproblems, which are solved iteratively via successive convex approximation (SCA). Extensive simulations demonstrate: (1) near-optimal performance with ϵ ≈ 0.67% deviation from upper-bound solutions, (2) 16% higher minimum rates for distant users compared to non-predictive 3D designs, and (3) 10 − 30% faster outage mitigation than time-division benchmarks. The framework’s adaptive speed control enables precise mobile user tracking while maintaining energy efficiency under constrained flight time. Results demonstrate superior robustness in edge-coverage scenarios, making it particularly suitable for 5G/6G networks.

Network slicing (NS) is one of the key techniques to manage logical and functionally separated networks on a common infrastructure, in a dynamic manner. As the complexity of virtualizing a full infrastructure required unprecedented effort, the initial idea of combining satellite and terrestrial networks has not been fully implemented in 5G yet. 6G networks are expected to further bring NS to a substrate network that is more heterogeneous, due to the full integration between terrestrial and satellite networks. NS describes the process of accommodating virtual networks, typically composed of nodes and links with the respective requirements, into the main infrastructure. This is an NP-Hard problem, typically also known as Virtual Network Embedding (VNE). Existing VNE solutions are designed per use-case and lack flexibility, adaptation and traffic-awareness, especially in such dynamic satellite environment. In this work, we investigate the VNE implementation to integrated satellite-terrestrial networks and propose a novel flexible framework, named Slice-Aware VNE for Satellite-Terrestrial (SAST-VNE), which 1) operates based on traffic prioritization; 2) jointly optimizes the load-balancing and the migration cost when network congestion occurs; and 3) provides a near-optimal solution. We compare SAST-VNE to existing well-known near-optimal VNE algorithms such as VINEYard and CEVNE and the shortest-path SN-VNE solution for satellite networks. The simulations showed that SAST-VNE reduces the migration costs between 10% and 40% during satellite handovers while maintaining the network load under control. Furthermore, when congestion occurs, SAST-VNE proved to be flexible in matching the priority of the slice, i.e., tolerated latency, with the time complexity and optimality of the solution.

In the ever-evolving landscape ofNextGwireless networks, Open radio access network (RAN) emerges as a transformative paradigm, revolutionizing network architectures and fostering innovation through its open, intelligent and disaggregated approach. By integrating RAN intelligent controllers (RICs), we can seamlessly implement machine learning (ML) algorithms to cater to diverse vertical applications and deployment environments without the need for intricate planning. However, this architecture suffers from two critical challenges: frequent handovers and load balancing amid varying traffic demands of different services in dynamic environments. To address these issues, this study proposes a joint intelligent user association, congestion control, and resource scheduling (IUCR) scheme. Aligning with the 7.2x functional split (FS) option recommended by the O-RAN Alliance, we present a hierarchical optimization framework incorporating heuristic methods, successive convex approximation (SCA), and a distributed deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach across different Open RAN components, such as RICs and RAN layers. The simulation results convincingly demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed scheme compared to centralized approaches, validating its effectiveness.

With countless promising applications in various domains such as IoT and Industry 4.0, task-oriented communication design (TOCD) is getting accelerated attention from the research community. This paper presents a novel approach for designing scalable task-oriented quantization and communications in cooperative multi-agent systems (MAS). The proposed approach utilizes the TOCD framework and the value of information (VoI) concept to enable efficient communication of quantized observations among agents while maximizing the average return performance of the MAS, a parameter that quantifies the MAS’s task effectiveness. The computational complexity of learning the VoI, however, grows exponentially with the number of agents. Thus, we propose a three-step framework: (i) learning the VoI (using reinforcement learning (RL)) for a two-agent system, (ii) designing the quantization policy for an N-agent MAS using the learned VoI for a range of bit-budgets and, (iii) learning the agents’ control policies using RL while following the designed quantization policies in the earlier step. Our analytical results show the applicability of the proposed framework under a wide range of problems. Numerical results show striking improvements in reducing the computational complexity of obtaining VoI needed for the TOCD in a MAS problem without compromising the average return performance of the MAS.

The next-generation regenerative payload-enabled low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites enable task offloading and delivering services to energy and computation-constrained devices in remote terrains. Recent studies on satellite-aided edge computing often focus on binary offloading scenarios, neglecting crucial system parameters such as service period, task deadline, and output size. To address these limitations, we propose a hierarchical computation framework for remote Earth observation-related services such as disaster prediction, 2D/3D scene observation, route finding, and rescue operations based on satellite images/videos. The proposed framework supports parallel and partial task offloading strategies, optimizing the communication and computation resources across the serving LEO satellite, adjacent LEO satellites, and cloud-aided gateway. Our objective is to minimize the worst-case task completion time, ensuring near real-time delivery of requested tasks. The formulated multi-time slot joint optimization problem is tackled via the proposed iterative algorithm based on successive convex approximation, demonstrating superior performance compared to baseline solutions.

Open Radio Access Network (RAN), with its open and disaggregated architecture, fosters innovation in traffic and congestion control in dynamic environments. However, achieving optimal user association and resource scheduling under incomplete information and varying traffic patterns remains challenging due to non-convexity and combinatorial aspects. To address this, we propose a hierarchical approach that features a heuristic, iterative successive convex approximation (SCA), and deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm. The proposed solution considers a practical constraint on limited information exchange among radio units (RUs) and complies with the O-RAN Alliance’s 7.2x functional split (FS) option. This scheme optimizes performance through intelligent user association, re-source scheduling, and congestion control. The simulation results highlight its superiority over the benchmark schemes, confirming its effectiveness and demonstrating a throughput improvement of 106.27% compared to the benchmark scheme.

This work investigates the application of Beyond Diagonal Intelligent Reflective Surface (BD-IRS) to enhance THz downlink communication systems, operating in a hybrid: reflective and transmissive mode, to simultaneously provide services to indoor and outdoor users. We propose an optimization framework that jointly optimizes the beamforming vectors and phase shifts in the hybrid reflective/transmissive mode, aiming to maximize the system sum rate. To tackle the challenges in solving the joint design problem, we employ the conjugate gradient method and propose an iterative algorithm that successively optimizes the hybrid beamforming vectors and the phase shifts. Through comprehensive numerical simulations, our findings demonstrate a significant improvement in rate when compared to existing benchmark schemes, including time- and frequency-divided approaches, by approximately 30.5% and 69.9% respectively and even outperforms the STAR-IRS system by 76.99%. This underscores the significant influence of IRS elements on system performance relative to that of base station antennas, highlighting their pivotal role in advancing the communication system efficacy.

Non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) play an essential role in the 6 G multi-layer architecture to provide ubiquitous coverage as well as guarantee heterogeneous requirements from vertical services. Compared to terrestrial gNodeB, flying base stations (F -BSs) in NTN are limited in terms of computation capability as well as energy budget. Therefore, it is of great importance for F-BSs to have computational and energy-efficient radio resource management (RRM) strategies. In this paper, we propose a low-complexity algorithm that jointly optimizes the transmit power and bandwidth allocation of OFDM-based multiuser downlink in NTN under flat fading scenario. The proposed algorithm exploits the flexible bandwidth design methodology to tackle the binary selection challenges, followed by a bandwidth adjustment step to force the allocated bandwidth to a multiplication of sub-channel bandwidth. More importantly, the proposed algorithm is robust against the channel estimation error. It is shown that the proposed algorithm retains the optimal solutions while significantly reduces the computational complexity, compared to both the optimal brand-and-bound (BnB) and the popular difference-of-convex (DC)-based sub-channel allocation solutions.

We consider a task-effective quantization problem that arises when multiple agents are controlled via a centralized controller (CC). While agents have to communicate their observations to the CC for decision-making, the bit-budgeted communications of agent-CC links may limit the task-effectiveness of the system which is measured by the system’s average sum of stage costs/rewards. As a result, each agent should compress/quantize its observation such that the average sum of stage costs/rewards of the control task is minimally impacted. We address the problem of maximizing the average sum of stage rewards by proposing two different Action-Based State Aggregation (ABSA) algorithms that carry out the indirect and joint design of control and communication policies in the multi-agent system. While the applicability of ABSA-1 is limited to single-agent systems, it provides an analytical framework that acts as a stepping stone to the design of ABSA-2. ABSA-2 carries out the joint design of control and communication for a multi-agent system. We evaluate the algorithms -with average return as the performance metric -using numerical experiments performed to solve a multi-agent geometric consensus problem. The numerical results are concluded by introducing a new metric that measures the effectiveness of communications in a multi-agent system.

The convergence of advanced communication technologies and powerful computing architecture has unlocked a plethora of opportunities for Internet-of-Things applications. To fully realize this potential, a synergistic design encompassing sensing, computing, and communication is crucial. This article investigates these critical technologies to facilitate service-oriented systems by minimizing end-to-end latency and the number of deployed services at edge servers in mobile edge computing, all within the confines of stringent ultrareliable and low-latency communication requirements and system budget constraints. The addressed optimization problem takes into account variables, such as service placement strategies, task offloading portions, and bandwidth allocation. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of our solution and highlight the impact of key parameters on system performance.

The regenerative capabilities of next-generation satellite systems offer a novel approach to design low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication systems, enabling full flexibility in bandwidth and spot beam management, power control, and onboard data processing. These advancements allow the implementation of intelligent spatial multiplexing techniques, addressing the ever-increasing demand for future broadband data traffic. Existing satellite resource management solutions, however, do not fully exploit these capabilities. To address this issue, a novel framework called flexible resource management algorithm for LEO satellites (FLARE-LEO) is proposed to jointly design bandwidth, power, and spot beam coverage optimized for the geographic distribution of users. It incorporates multi-spot beam multicasting, spatial multiplexing, caching, and handover (HO). In particular, the spot beam coverage is optimized by using the unsupervised K-means algorithm applied to the realistic geographical user demands, followed by a proposed successive convex approximation (SCA)-based iterative algorithm for optimizing the radio resources. Furthermore, we propose two joint transmission architectures during the HO period, which jointly estimate the downlink channel state information (CSI) using deep learning and optimize the transmit power of the LEOs involved in the HO process to improve the overall system throughput. Simulations demonstrate superior performance in terms of delivery time reduction of the proposed algorithm over the existing solutions.

To enable an intelligent, programmable and multi-vendor radio access network (RAN) for 6G networks, considerable efforts have been made in standardization and development of open RAN (O-RAN). So far, however, the applicability of O-RAN in controlling and optimizing RAN functions has not been widely investigated. In this paper, we jointly optimize the flow-split distribution, congestion control and scheduling (JFCS) to enable an intelligent traffic steering application in O-RAN. Combining tools from network utility maximization and stochastic optimization, we introduce a multi-layer optimization framework that provides fast convergence, long-term utility-optimality and significant delay reduction compared to the state-of-the-art and baseline RAN approaches. Our main contributions are three-fold:$i$) we propose the novel JFCS framework to efficiently and adaptively direct traffic to appropriate radio units;$ii$) we develop low-complexity algorithms based on the reinforcement learning, inner approximation and bisection search methods to effectively solve the JFCS problem in different time scales; and$iii$) the rigorous theoretical performance results are analyzed to show that there exists a scaling factor to improve the tradeoff between delay and utility-optimization. Collectively, the insights in this work will open the door towards fully automated networks with enhanced control and flexibility. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in terms of the convergence rate, long-term utility-optimality and delay reduction.

This paper addresses the virtual network embedding (VNE) problem in integrated satellite-terrestrial networks (STNs). VNE consists of mapping virtual network functions (VNFs) in a service function chain (SFC) to physical nodes and mapping virtual links connecting the VNFs to physical links. Compared to terrestrial networks, VNE in STNs is challenging due to the movement of the non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellites and limited onboard processing resources. A static VNE strategy fails to efficiently address the diverse requirements of heterogeneous service requests in such a highly dynamic topology. In addition, existing solutions do not consider the capacity limitation and connectivity duration of inter-satellite links (ISLs) and ground-to-satellite links, which are essential parameters for deploying a VNE strategy in STNs. This work proposes a heuristic solution and reinforcement learning (RL)-based improved solution for the VNE scheme that can dynamically modify the existing VNF deployment strategy to maximize the average service acceptance rate and revenue. The RL agent selects a suitable VNE strategy for each service request considering the time-varying network topology and service’s requirements. The proposed scheme increases the service acceptance ratio by 19.95% compared to the benchmark TS-MAPSCH.

Non-Geostationary Orbit satellite (NGSO) is an essential element in 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs), which can operate either independently or as complementary parts to terrestrial systems to boost the network capacity, coverage and resilience. Due to the highly dynamic topologies, one of the challenges in NGSO is how to harmonize the network virtualized resources to satisfy diverse quality of service requirements in an efficient manner. In this paper, we investigate Virtual Network Embedding (VNE) for integrated NGSO-terrestrial systems while considering dynamic topologies. We propose a Dynamic Topology-Aware VNE (DTA-VNE) algorithm which, given priori information about the network’s evolution over time, can plan the embedding for each Virtual Network Request (VNR) over its lifetime. In a highly dynamic environment, the VNE decision can be varying for different VNRs at the expense of a considerable cost of migrating traffic and reconfiguring resources. The proposed DTA-VNE aims at minimizing this migration cost and thus avoids unnecessary re-mappings. In numerical results, the effectiveness of the proposed DTA-VNE is demonstrated with much lower migration cost than the conventional implementations. We show the benefit of planning for more time slots, in terms of migration cost, and the impact on the computation time, due to the increasing problem complexity. The trade-off between these two performance metrics is studied. Furthermore, we verify the efficiency of DTA-VNE in a MultI-layer awaRe SDN-based testbed for SAtellite-Terrestrial networks (MIRSAT). Finally, the application of DTA-VNE to novel scenarios such as mega LEO constellations is discussed, highlighting the challenges and possible solutions.

This paper investigates the antenna selection problem in massive multiple-input multiple-out (MIMO) systems under incomplete channel state information (CSI), with a particular interest on risk-aware planning subjected to practical constraints such as transmit power budgets and quality of services (QoS). Due to a very large number of antennas, obtaining complete channel measurements becomes a cost-prohibitive, energy-inefficient and spectral-inefficient task. To reduce pilot overhead, incomplete CSI and antenna selection (AS) are expected in practical massive MIMO systems. However, most existing AS algorithms heavily rely on the complete CSI, which imposes a high probability of violating the practical constraints in the scenarios of our interests. Motivated by this, we propose a joint channel prediction and antenna selection framework (JCPAS) which efficiently performs AS and is robust against the incomplete CSI and practical constraints. The proposed framework comprises i) a channel tracker which estimates the channel dynamics based on historical incomplete observations, and ii) a risk-aware Monte Carlo tree search (RA-MCTS) algorithm which utilizes the estimated channel dynamics to select antennas in a risk-aware manner. Simulation results show that the proposed RA-MCTS not only achieves much lower energy consumption compared to the existing typical algorithms, but also significantly reduces the probability of violating the practical constraints.

The sixth-generation (6G) wireless network landscape is evolving toward enhanced programmability, virtualization, and intelligence to support heterogeneous use cases. The O-RAN Alliance is pivotal in this transition, introducing a disaggregated architecture and open interfaces within the 6G network. Our paper explores an intelligent traffic steering (TS) scheme within the Open radio access network (RAN) architecture, aimed at improving overall system performance. Our novel TS algorithm efficiently manages diverse services, improving shared infrastructure performance amid unpredictable demand fluctuations. To address challenges like varying channel conditions, dynamic traffic demands, we propose a multi-layer optimization framework tailored to different timescales. Techniques such as long-short-term memory (LSTM), heuristics, and multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL) are employed within the non-real-time (non-RT) RAN intelligent controller (RIC). These techniques collaborate to make decisions on a larger timescale, defining custom control applications such as the intelligent TS-xAPP deployed at the near-real-time (near-RT) RIC. Meanwhile, optimization on a smaller timescale occurs at the RAN layer after receiving inferences/policies from RICs to address dynamic environments. The simulation results confirm the system’s effectiveness in intelligently steering traffic through a slice-aware scheme, improving eMBB throughput by an average of 99.42% over slice isolation.

With the emergence of ultra-reliable and low latency communication (URLLC) services, link adaptation (LA) plays a pivotal role in improving the robustness and reliability of communication networks via appropriate modulation and coding schemes (MCS). LA-based resource management schemes in both physical and medium access control layers can significantly enhance the system performance in terms of throughput, latency, reliability, and quality of service. Increasing the number of retransmissions will achieve higher reliability and increase transmission latency. In order to balance this trade-off with improved link performance for URLLC services, we study a joint subcarrier and power allocation problem to maximize the achievable sum-rate under an appropriate MCS. The formulated problem is mixed-integer nonconvex programming which is challenging to solve optimally. In addition, a direct application of standard optimization techniques is no longer applicable due to the complication of the effective signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) function. To overcome this challenge, we first relax the binary variables to continuous ones and introduce additional variables to convert the relaxed problem into a more tractable form. By leveraging the successive convex approximation method, we develop a low-complexity iterative algorithm that guarantees to achieve at least a locally optimal solution. Simulation results are provided to show the fast convergence of the proposed iterative algorithm and demonstrate the significant performance improvement in terms of the achievable sum-rate, compared with the conventional LA approach and existing retransmission policy.

Task-oriented communication design (TOCD) has gained significant attention from the research community due to its numerous promising applications in domains such as$\text{IoT}$and industry 4.0. This paper introduces an innovative approach to designing scalable task-oriented quantization and communications in cooperative multi-agent systems (MAS). Our proposed approach leverages the TOCD framework and the concept of the value of information$(\text{VoI})$to facilitate efficient communication of quantized observations among agents while maximizing the average return performance of the MAS-a metric that measures the task effectiveness of the MAS. Learning the VoI becomes a prohibitively large computational problem as the number of agents grows in the MAS. To address this challenge, we present a three-step framework. First, we employ reinforcement learning (RL) to learn the VoI for a two-agent, rather than for the original$N$-agent system, reducing the computational costs associated with obtaining the value of information. Next, we design the quantization policy for a MAS with N agents, utilizing the learned VoI across a range of bit-budgets. The resulting quantization strategy for agents' observations, ensures that more valuable observations are communicated with greater precision. Finally, we apply RL to learn the agents' control policies, while adhering to the quantization policies designed in the previous step. Our analytical results showcase the effectiveness of the proposed framework across a wide range of problems. Numerical experiments demonstrate improvements in reducing the computational complexity required for obtaining VoI by five orders of magnitude in TOCD for MAS problems while compromising less than 1% on the average return performance of the MAS.

In this paper, we aim to enable an intelligent traffic (TS) steering application in the open radio access network (O-RAN) by jointly optimizing the flow-split distribution, congestion control and scheduling (i.e. so-called JFCS). To do so, we develop a multi-layer optimization framework based on network utility maximization and stochastic optimization methods. The proposed algorithm provides fast convergence, long-term utility-optimality and significantly low latency compared to state-of-the-art RAN approaches. In particular, our main contributions are as follows: i) we propose the novel JFCS framework to efficiently and adaptively route traffic to indented users in appropriate radio units, and ii) we develop low-complexity algorithms to effectively solve the JFCS problem in different time scales, enabling a closed-loop control of the TS in the O-RAN context. The insights presented in this work will pave the way for 0- RAN that are completely automated, offering improved control and flexibility.

Before the advent of High-Throughput Satellites (HTSs), the satellite capacity was not enough to accommodate a large amount of data. Thanks to HTS, beyond 5G networks will boost the cooperation between space, air and terrestrial networks. The coexistence of heterogeneous QoS traffic demands, (e.g., emergency services, In-Flight Connectivity (IFC), Earth Observation Missions (EOMs)), over a dynamic environment, such as Multi-layer satellite-terrestrial networks, made the routing complex to handle. Additionally, due to numerous Inter-Satellite Links (ISLs) and their frequent changes, a testbed with real network emulation is challenging to develop.It is relevant not only to optimize the dynamic routing, but also to emulate the network in a testbed. This allows to consider systems constraints such as communication and technology delays in the most realistic manner. This paper investigates the future coexistence of the mentioned use cases for integrated Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN)-terrestrial networks. We use Software Defined Networking (SDN) to monitor the substrate network with traffic statistics and apply routing decisions, via traffic handovers, during unexpected situations (congestion, link unavailability), in a reactive manner. Furthermore, we show that, for traditional handovers due to loss of Line of Sight (LoS), the SDN controller manages the procedure proactively to minimize traffic losses.

This work considers the orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) technology that enables multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (multi-UAV) communication systems to provide on-demand services. The main aim of this work is to derive the optimal allocation of radio resources, 3D placement of UAVs, and user association matrices. To achieve the desired objectives, we decoupled the original joint optimization problem into two sub-problems: i) 3D placement and user association and ii) sum-rate maximization for optimal radio resource allocation, which are solved iteratively. The proposed iterative algorithm is shown via numerical results to achieve fast convergence speed after less than 10 iterations. The benefits of the proposed design are demonstrated via superior sum-rate performance compared to existing reference designs. Moreover, the results declared that the optimal power and sub-carrier allocation helped mitigate the co-cell interference that directly impacts the system’s performance.

We consider a distributed quantization problem that arises when multiple edge devices, i.e., agents, are controlled via a centralized controller (CC). While agents have to communicate their observations to the CC for decision-making, the bit-budgeted communications of agent-CC links may limit the task-effectiveness of the system which is measured by the system's average sum of stage costs/rewards. As a result, each agent, given its local processing resources, should compress/quantize its observation such that the average sum of stage costs/rewards of the control task is minimally impacted. We address the problem of maximizing the average sum of stage rewards by proposing two different Action-Based State Aggregation (ABSA) algorithms that carry out the indirect and joint design of control and communication policies in the multi-agent system (MAS). While the applicability of ABSA-1 is limited to single-agent systems, it provides an analytical framework that acts as a stepping stone to the design of ABSA-2. ABSA-2 carries out the joint design of control and communication for an MAS. We evaluate the algorithms - with average return as the performance metric - using numerical experiments performed to solve a multi-agent geometric consensus problem.

Non-Geostationary Orbit satellite (NGSO) is an essential element in 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs), which can operate either independently or as complementary parts to terrestrial systems to boost the network capacity, coverage and resilience. Due to the highly dynamic topologies, one of the challenges in NGSO is how to harmonize the network virtualized resources to satisfy diverse quality of service requirements in an efficient manner. In this paper, we investigate Virtual Network Embedding (VNE) for integrated NGSO-terrestrial systems while considering dynamic topologies. We propose a Mixed Binary Linear Programming (MBLP) formulation for a Dynamic Topology-Aware VNE (DTA-VNE) algorithm. Given priori information about the network’s evolution over time, DTA-VNE plans the embedding for each Virtual Network Request (VNR) over its lifetime. In a highly dynamic environment, the VNE decision can be varying for different VNRs at the expense of a considerable cost of migrating traffic and reconfiguring resources. DTA-VNE aims at minimizing this migration cost to avoid unnecessary re-mappings. To tackle the exponential complexity of the MBLP, we propose an efficient algorithm based on relaxation approaches (DTA-R) to solve large-scale problems. In numerical results, the effectiveness of the proposed DTA-R is demonstrated with much lower migration cost than the conventional implementations. The trade-off between the computation time and migration cost of DTA-R is studied. Finally, we test DTA-R and the baselines in our developed MultI-layer awaRe SDN-based testbed for SAtellite-Terrestrial networks (MIRSAT) to precisely quantify the packet lost for each migration. DTA-R proved to reduce the packet lost by ~2.5-5% compared to baselines.

Open radio access network (ORAN) Alliance offers a disaggregated RAN functionality built using open interface specifications between blocks. To efficiently support various competing services,namelyenhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and ultra-reliable and low-latency (uRLLC), the ORAN Alliance has introduced a standard approach toward more virtualized, open, and intelligent networks. To realize the benefits of ORAN in optimizing resource utilization, this paper studies an intelligent traffic steering (TS) scheme within the proposed disaggregated ORAN architecture. For this purpose, we propose a joint intelligent traffic prediction, flow-split distribution, dynamic user association, and radio resource management (JIFDR) framework in the presence of unknown dynamic traffic demands. To adapt to dynamic environments on different time scales, we decompose the formulated optimization problem into two long-term and short-term subproblems, where the optimality of the latter is strongly dependent on the optimal dynamic traffic demand. We then apply a long-short-term memory (LSTM) model to effectively solve the long-term subproblem, aiming to predict dynamic traffic demands, RAN slicing, and flow-split decisions. The resulting non-convex short-term subproblem is converted to a more computationally tractable form by exploiting successive convex approximations. Finally, simulation results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms compared to several well-known benchmark schemes.

The next generation multibeam satellites open up a new way to design satellite communication channels with the full flexibility in bandwidth, transmit power and beam coverage management. In this paper, we exploit the flexible multibeam satellite capabilities and the geographical distribution of users to improve the performance of satellite-assisted edge caching systems. Our aim is to jointly optimize the bandwidth allocation in multibeam and caching decisions at the edge nodes to address two important problems: i) cache feeding time minimization and ii) cache hits maximization. To tackle the non-convexity of the joint optimization problem, we transform the original problem into a difference-of-convex (DC) form, which is then solved by the proposed iterative algorithm whose convergence to at least a local optimum is theoretically guaranteed. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the proposed design is evaluated under the realistic beams coverage of the satellite SES-14 and Movielens data set. Numerical results show that our proposed joint design can reduce the caching feeding time by 50% and increase the cache hit ratio (CHR) by 10% to 20% compared to existing solutions. Furthermore, we examine the impact of multispot beams and multicarrier wide-beam on the joint design and discuss potential research directions.

Towards the next generation networks, low earth orbit (LEO) satellites have been considered as a promising component for beyond 5G networks. In this paper, we study downlink LEO-5G communication systems in a practical scenario, where the integrated LEO-terrestrial system is over-loaded by serving a number of terminals with high-volume traffic requests. Our goal is to optimize resource scheduling such that the amount of undelivered data and the number of unserved terminals can be minimized. Due to the inherent hardness of the formulated quadratic integer programming problem, the optimal algorithm requires unaffordable complexity. To solve the problem, we propose a near-optimal algorithm based on alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM-HEU), which saves computational time by taking advantage of the distributed ADMM structure, and a low-complexity heuristic algorithm (LC-HEU), which is based on estimation and greedy methods. The results demonstrate the near-optimality of ADMM-HEU and the computational efficiency of LC-HEU compared to the benchmarks.

In this paper, we address the virtual network embedding (VNE) problem in non-terrestrial networks (NTNs) enabling dynamic changes in the virtual network function (VNF) deployment to maximize the service acceptance rate and service revenue. NTNs such as satellite networks involve highly dynamic topology and limited resources in terms of rate and power. VNE in NTNs is a challenge because a static strategy under-performs when new service requests arrive or the network topology changes unexpectedly due to failures or other events. Existing solutions do not consider the power constraint of satellites and rate limitation of inter-satellite links (ISLs) which are essential parameters for dynamic adjustment of existing VNE strategy in NTNs. In this work, we propose a dynamic VNE algorithm that selects a suitable VNE strategy for new and existing services considering the time-varying network topology. The proposed scheme, D-ViNE, increases the service acceptance ratio by 8.51% compared to the benchmark scheme TS-MAPSCH.

In this paper, we propose a novel economic-efficiency framework for an electric vehicle (EV) network to maximize the profits (i.e., the amount of money that can be earned) for charging stations (CSs). To that end, we first introduce an energy demand prediction method for CSs leveraging federated learning approaches, in which each CS can train its own energy transactions locally and exchange its learned model with other CSs to improve the learning quality while protecting the CS's information privacy. Based on the predicted energy demands, each CS can reserve energy from the smart grid provider (SGP) in advance to optimize its profit. Nonetheless, due to the competition among the CSs as well as unknown information from the SGP, i.e., the willingness to transfer energy, we develop a multi-principal one-agent (MPOA) contract-based method to address these issues. In particular, we formulate the CSs’ profit maximization as a non-collaborative energy contract problem under the SGP's unknown information and common constraints as well as other CSs’ contracts. To solve this problem, we transform it into an equivalent low-complexity optimization problem and develop an iterative algorithm to find the optimal contracts for the CSs. Through simulation results using a real CS dataset, we demonstrate that our proposed framework can enhance energy demand prediction accuracy up to 24.63 percent compared with other machine learning algorithms. Furthermore, our proposed framework can outperform other economic models by 48 and 36 percent in terms of the CSs’ utilities and social welfare (i.e., the total profits of all participating entities) of the network, respectively.

This paper develops a novel framework to defeat a super-reactive jammer, one of the most difficult jamming attacks to deal with in practice. Specifically, the jammer has an unlimited power budget and is equipped with the self-interference suppression capability to simultaneously attack and listen to the transmitter’s activities. Consequently, dealing with super-reactive jammers is very challenging. Thus, we introduce a smart deception mechanism to attract the jammer to continuously attack the channel and then leverage jamming signals to transmit data based on the ambient backscatter communication technology. To detect the backscattered signals, the maximum likelihood detector can be adopted. However, this method is notorious for its high computational complexity and requires the model of the current propagation environment as well as channel state information. Hence, we propose a deep learning-based detector that can dynamically adapt to any channels and noise distributions. With a Long Short-Term Memory network, our detector can learn the received signals’ dependencies to achieve a performance close to that of the optimal maximum likelihood detector. Through simulation and theoretical results, we demonstrate that with our approaches, the more power the jammer uses to attack the channel, the better bit error rate performance the transmitter can achieve.

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication has emerged as a prominent technology for emergency communications (e.g., natural disaster) in the Internet of Things (IoT) networks to enhance the ability of disaster prediction, damage assessment, and rescue operations promptly. A UAV can be deployed as a flying base station (BS) to collect data from time-constrained IoT devices and then transfer it to a ground gateway (GW). In general, the latency constraint at IoT devices and UAV’s limited storage capacity highly hinder practical applications of UAV-assisted IoT networks. In this paper, full-duplex (FD) radio is adopted at the UAV to overcome these challenges. In addition, half-duplex (HD) scheme for UAV-based relaying is also considered to provide a comparative study between two modes (viz., FD and HD). Herein, a device is considered to be successfully served if its data is collected by the UAV and conveyed to GW timely during flight time. In this context, we aim to maximize the number of served IoT devices by jointly optimizing bandwidth, power allocation, and the UAV trajectory while satisfying each device’s requirement and the UAV’s limited storage capacity. The formulated optimization problem is troublesome to solve due to its non-convexity and combinatorial nature. Towards appealing applications, we first relax binary variables into continuous ones and transform the original problem into a more computationally tractable form. By leveraging inner approximation framework, we derive newly approximated functions for non-convex parts and then develop a simple yet efficient iterative algorithm for its solutions. Next, we attempt to maximize the total throughput subject to the number of served IoT devices. Finally, numerical results show that the proposed algorithms significantly outperform benchmark approaches in terms of the number of served IoT devices and system throughput.

Multiuser techniques play a central role in the fifth-generation (5G) and beyond 5G (B5G) wireless networks that exploit spatial diversity to serve multiple users simultaneously in the same frequency resource. It is well known that a multi-antenna base station (BS) can efficiently serve a number of users not exceeding the number of antennas at the BS via precoding design. However, when there are more users than the number of antennas at the BS, conventional precoding design methods perform poorly because inter-user interference cannot be efficiently eliminated. In this paper, we investigate the performance of a highly-loaded multiuser system in which a BS simultaneously serves a number of users that is larger than the number of antennas. We propose a dynamic bandwidth allocation and precoding design framework and apply it to two important problems in multiuser systems: i) User fairness maximization and ii) Transmit power minimization, both subject to predefined quality of service (QoS) requirements. The premise of the proposed framework is to dynamically assign orthogonal frequency channels to different user groups and carefully design the precoding vectors within every user group. Since the formulated problems are non-convex, we propose two iterative algorithms based on successive convex approximations (SCA), whose convergence is theoretically guaranteed. Furthermore, we propose a low-complexity user grouping policy based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) to further improve the system performance. Finally, we demonstrate via numerical results that the proposed framework significantly outperforms existing designs in the literature.

Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite-assisted communications have been considered as one of the key elements in beyond 5G systems to provide wide coverage and cost-efficient data services. Such dynamic space-terrestrial topologies impose an exponential increase in the degrees of freedom in network management. In this paper, we address two practical issues for an over-loaded LEO-terrestrial system. The first challenge is how to efficiently schedule resources to serve a massive number of connected users, such that more data and users can be delivered/served. The second challenge is how to make the algorithmic solution more resilient in adapting to dynamic wireless environments. We first propose an iterative suboptimal algorithm to provide an offline benchmark. To adapt to unforeseen variations, we propose an enhanced meta-critic learning algorithm (EMCL), where a hybrid neural network for parameterization and the Wolpertinger policy for action mapping are designed in EMCL. The results demonstrate EMCL’s effectiveness and fast-response capabilities in over-loaded systems and in adapting to dynamic environments compare to previous actor-critic and meta-learning methods.

Federated learning (FL) allows multiple edge computing nodes to jointly build a shared learning model without having to transfer their raw data to a centralized server, thus reducing communication overhead. However, FL still faces a number of challenges such as nonindependent and identically distributed data and heterogeneity of user equipments (UEs). Enabling a large number of UEs to join the training process in every round raises a potential issue of the heavy global communication burden. To address these issues, we generalize the current state-of-the-art federated averaging (FedAvg) by adding a weight-based proximal term to the local loss function. The proposed FL algorithm runs stochastic gradient descent in parallel on a sampled subset of the total UEs with replacement during each global round. We provide a convergence upper bound characterizing the tradeoff between convergence rate and global rounds, showing that a small number of active UEs per round still guarantees convergence. Next, we employ the proposed FL algorithm in wireless Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks to minimize either total energy consumption or completion time of FL, where a simple yet efficient path-following algorithm is developed for its solutions. Finally, numerical results on unbalanced data sets are provided to demonstrate the performance improvement and robustness on the convergence rate of the proposed FL algorithm over FedAvg. They also reveal that the proposed algorithm requires much less training time and energy consumption than the FL algorithm with full user participation. These observations advocate the proposed FL algorithm for a paradigm shift in bandwidth-constrained learning wireless IoT networks.

We investigate the performance of multi-user multiple-antenna downlink systems in which a base station (BS) serves multiple users via a shared wireless medium. In order to fully exploit the spatial diversity while minimizing the passive energy consumed by radio frequency (RF) components, the BS is equipped with$M$RF chains and$N$antennas, where$M < N$. Upon receiving pilot sequences to obtain the channel state information (CSI), the BS determines the best subset of$M$antennas for serving the users. We propose a joint antenna selection and precoding design (JASPD) algorithm to maximize the system sum rate subject to a transmit power constraint and quality of service (QoS) requirements. The JASPD algorithm overcomes the non-convexity of the formulated problem via a doubly iterative algorithm, in which an inner loop successively optimizes the precoding vectors, followed by an outer loop that tests all valid antenna subsets. Although approaching (near) global optimality, the JASPD suffers from a combinatorial complexity, which may limit its application in real-time network operations. To overcome this limitation, we propose a learning-based antenna selection and precoding design algorithm (L-ASPA), which employs a deep neural network (DNN) to establish underlaying relations between key system parameters and the selected antennas. The proposed L-ASPD algorithm is robust against the number of users and their locations, the transmit power of the BS, as well as the small-scale channel fading. With a well-trained learning model, it is shown that the L-ASPD algorithm significantly outperforms baseline schemes based on the block diagonalization and a learning-assisted solution for broadcasting systems and achieves a better effective sum rate than that of the JASPA under limited processing time. In addition, we observed that the proposed L-ASPD algorithm can reduce the computation complexity by 95% while retaining more than 95% of the optimal performance.

A collaborative task is assigned to a multiagent system (MAS) in which agents are allowed to communicate. The MAS runs over an underlying Markov decision process and its task is to maximize the averaged sum of discounted one-stage rewards. Although knowing the global state of the environment is necessary for the optimal action selection of the MAS, agents are limited to individual observations. The inter-agent communication can tackle the issue of local observability, however, the limited rate of the inter-agent communication prevents the agents from acquiring the precise global state information. To overcome this challenge, agents need to communicate their observations in a compact way such that the MAS compromises the minimum possible sum of rewards. We show that this problem is equivalent to a form of rate-distortion problem which we call the task-based information compression. State Aggregation for Information Compression (SAIC) is introduced here to perform the task-based information compression. The SAIC is shown, conditionally, to be capable of achieving the optimal performance in terms of the attained sum of discounted rewards. The proposed algorithm is applied to a rendezvous problem and its performance is compared with two benchmarks; (i) conventional source coding algorithms and the (ii) centralized multiagent control using reinforcement learning. Numerical experiments confirm the superiority and fast convergence of the proposed SAIC.

Cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-MIMO) is a promising technological enabler for fifth generation (5G) networks in which a large number of access points (APs) jointly serve the users. Each AP applies conjugate beamforming to precode data, which is based only on the AP’s local channel state information. However, by having the nature of a (very) large number of APs, the operation of CF-MIMO can be energy inefficient. In this paper, we investigate the energy efficiency performance of CF-MIMO by considering a practical energy consumption model which includes both the signal transmit energy as well as the static energy consumed by hardware components. In particular, a joint power allocation and AP selection design is proposed to minimize the total energy consumption subject to given quality of service (QoS) constraints. In order to deal with the combinatorial complexity of the formulated problem, we employ norm $l_{2,1}-$based block-sparsity and successive convex optimization to leverage the AP selection process. Numerical results show significant energy savings obtained by the proposed design, compared to all-active APs scheme and the large-scale based AP selection.

Edge caching is a promising technology to face the stringent latency requirements and back-haul traffic overloading in 5G wireless networks. However, acquiring the contents and modeling the optimal cache strategy is a challenging task. In this work, we use an active learning approach to learn the content popularities since it allows the system to leverage the trade-off between exploration and exploitation. Exploration refers to caching new files whereas exploitation use known files to cache, to achieve a good cache hit ratio. In this paper, we mainly focus to learn popularities as fast as possible while guaranteeing an operational cache hit ratio constraint. The effectiveness of proposed learning and caching policies are demonstrated via simulation results as a function of variance, cache hit ratio and used storage.

In this paper, we investigate the performance of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) multiuser systems, in which a base station serves a set of users with both information and energy simultaneously via a power splitting (PS) mechanism. To capture realistic scenarios, a nonlinear energy harvesting (EH) model is considered. In particular, we jointly design the PS factors and the beamforming vectors in order to maximize the total harvested energy, subjected to rate requirements and a total transmit power budget. To deal with the inherent non-convexity of the formulated problem, an iterative optimization algorithm is proposed based on the inner approximation method and semide-finite relaxation (SDR), whose convergence is theoretically guaranteed. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms the baseline max-min based SWIPT multicast and fixed-power PS designs.

Mobile edge caching (MEC) has received much attention as a promising technique to overcome the stringent latency and data hungry requirements in future generation wireless networks. Meanwhile, full-duplex (FD) transmission can potentially double the spectral efficiency by allowing a node to receive and transmit in the same time/frequency block simultaneously. In this paper, we investigate the delivery time performance of full-duplex enabled MEC (FD-MEC) systems, in which the users are served by distributed edge nodes (ENs), which operate in FD mode and are equipped with a limited storage memory. Firstly, we analyse the FD-MEC with different levels of cooperation among the ENs and take into account a realistic model of self-interference cancellation. Secondly, we propose a framework to minimize the system delivery time of FD-MEC under both linear and optimal precoding designs. Thirdly, to deal with the non-convexity of the formulated problems, two iterative optimization algorithms are proposed based on the inner approximation method, whose convergence is analytically guaranteed. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed designs are demonstrated via extensive numerical results. It is shown that the cooperative scheme mitigates inter-user and self interference significantly better than the distributed scheme at an expense of inter-EN cooperation. In addition, we show that minimum mean square error (MMSE)-based precoding design achieves the best performance-complexity trade-off, compared with the zero-forcing and optimal designs.

In a content-delivery network, files’ popularity and users’ requests change fast. Conventional caching schemes, e.g., caching (re)placement once per day during the off-peak hours, may not capture the up-to-date popularity. In this case, the contents in caches have to be regularly updated to prevent information becoming outdated, and at the same time users’ requested files must be delivered. These two tasks are challenging in practical heavy-traffic and multi-user scenarios when the network resources are limited. In this paper, we apply non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to facilitate concurrent caching replacement and content delivery in downlink transmission. We formulate a resource allocation problem to investigate how to efficiently push proactive files to the cache at the small base station and deliver the requested files to users. The resource-allocation problem is formulated as a mixed-integer exponential conic optimization problem. To enable a computationally-efficient optimal solution with finite convergence, we develop an iterative algorithm based on polyhedral outer approximation, where a polyhedral relaxation subproblem and a convex subproblem are constructed and iteratively solved to tighten the lower and upper bounds for the optimum, respectively. The numerical results demonstrate significant performance gains of the NOMA-enabled data transmission scheme in power and resource savings compared to the baseline scheme.

Blockchain is a merging technology for decentralized management and data security, which was first introduced as the core technology of cryptocurrency, e.g., Bitcoin. Since the first success in financial sector, blockchain has shown great potentials in various domains, e.g., internet of things and mobile networks. In this paper, we propose a novel blockchain-based architecture for content delivery networks (B-CDN), which exploits the advances of the blockchain technology to provide a decentralized and secure platform to connect content providers (CPs) with users. On one hand, the proposed B-CDN will leverage the registration and subscription of the users to different CPs, while guaranteeing the user privacy thanks to virtual identity provided by the blockchain network. On the other hand, the B-CDN creates a public immutable database of the requested contents (from all CPs), based on which each CP can better evaluate the user preference on its contents. The benefits of B-CDN are demonstrated via an edge-caching application, in which a feature-based caching algorithm is proposed for all CPs. The proposed caching algorithm is verified with the realistic Movielens dataset. A win-win relation between the CPs and users is observed, where the B-CDN improves user quality of experience and reduces cost of delivering content for the CPs.

Edge caching has received much attention as a promising technique to overcome the stringent latency and data hungry challenges in the future generation wireless networks. Meanwhile, full-duplex (FD) transmission can potentially double the spectral efficiency by allowing a node to receive and transmit simultaneously. In this paper, we study a cache-aided FD system via delivery time analysis and optimization. In the considered system, an edge node (EN) operates in FD mode and serves users via wireless channels. Two optimization problems are formulated to minimize the largest delivery time based on the two popular linear beamforming zero-forcing and minimum mean square error designs. Since the formulated problems are non-convex due to the self-interference at the EN, we propose two iterative optimization algorithms based on the inner approximation method. The convergence of the proposed iterative algorithms is analytically guaranteed. Finally, the impacts of caching and the advantages of the FD system over the half-duplex (HD) counterpart are demonstrated via numerical results.

We investigate the performance of multi-user multiple-antenna downlinks via joint antenna selection and power control design. In order to fully exploit the spatial diversity while minimizing the energy consumed by active radio frequency (RF) modules, a subset of antennas are selected to serve the users. Firstly, we propose a joint antenna selection and power allocation (JASPA) algorithm to maximize the system sum rate subjected to the total transmit power constraint and quality of service (QoS) requirements. JASPA copes with the non-convexity of the formulated problem via a doubly iterative algorithm, in which an inner iteration successively optimizes the transmit power followed by an outer loop that tries all valid antenna combinations. Although approaching the global optimality, JASPA suffers a combinatorial complexity, which might limit its application in real-time network operations. To overcome this limitation, we propose a learning-based antenna selection and power allocation (L-ASPA) which significantly reduces the high computational time of JASPA while retaining comparative performance. The core idea behind L-ASPA is to exploit the advances in machine learning to establish underlaying relation between the key system parameters and the selected antennas. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is demonstrated via numerical results, which show that JASPA could achieve 90% of the optimal performance while reducing more than 93% computation time.

In this paper, we investigate the performance of cache-assisted simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) cooperative systems, in which one source communicates with one destination via the aid of multiple relays. In order to prolong the relays’ serving time, the relays are assumed to be equipped with a cache memory and energy harvesting (EH) capability. Based on the time-splitting mechanism, we analyze the effect of caching on the system performance in terms of the serving throughput and the stored energy at the relay. In particular, two optimization problems are formulated to maximize the relay-destination throughput and the energy stored at the relay subject to some quality-of-service (QoS) constraints, respectively. By using the KKT conditions and with the help of the Lambert function, closed-form solutions are obtained for the two formulated problems. In order to further improve the performance, a relay selection policy is introduced to select the best relay based on either the maximum throughput between the relays’ and destination link or maximum stored energy at the relay, for conveying information to the destination. Numerical results reveal significant benefits of incorporating caching capabilities to SWIPT systems, in terms of improved serving time, throughput, and EH performance at the relays.

We address an energy-efficient scheduling problem for practical multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems with stringent execution-time requirements. Optimal user-group scheduling is adopted to enable timely and energy-efficient data transmission, such that all the users' demand can be delivered within a limited time. The high computational complexity in optimal iterative algorithms limits their applications in real-time network operations. In this paper, we rethink the conventional optimization algorithms, and embed machine-learning based predictions in the optimization process, aiming at improving the computational efficiency and meeting the stringent execution-time limits in practice, while retaining competitive energy-saving performance for the MISO system. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed method, i.e., optimization with machine- learning predictions (OMLP), is able to provide a time-efficient and high-quality solution for the considered scheduling problem. Towards online scheduling in real-time communications, OMLP is of high computational efficiency compared to conventional optimal iterative algorithms. OMLP guarantees the optimality as long as the machine- learning based predictions are accurate.

Edge-caching has received much attention as an efficient technique to reduce delivery latency and network congestion during peak-traffic times by bringing data closer to end users. In this paper, we investigate the latency performance of content delivery networks with the aid of edge-caching, in which a data centre is serving the users via a shared wireless medium. Firstly, we derive a cache placement design which minimizes the average (buffering) latency during the delivery phase. It is found that the derived placement solution differs from the conventional placement method for throughput minimization. Secondly, for a given cache placement scheme, we optimize the signal transmission in the delivery phase taking into consideration the cached content to minimize the average user latency. Particularly, two optimization problems based on zero-forcing (ZF) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) designs are formulated subject to requesting rate and transmit power constraints. To deal with the non-convexity of the MMSE problem, an iterative algorithm is proposed that approximates the non-convex constraint by its first-order approximation. Finally, numerical results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed designs.

We investigate the performance of time switching (TS) based energy harvesting model for cache-assisted simultaneous wireless transmission of information and energy (Wi-TIE). In the considered system, a relay which is equipped with both caching and energy harvesting capabilities helps a source to convey information to a destination. First, we formulate based on the time-switching architecture an optimization problem to maximize the harvested energy, taking into consideration the cache capability and user quality of service requirement. We then solve the formulated problem to obtain closed-form solutions. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system via numerical results.

In this paper, we Investigate the performance of cache enabled millimeter wave (mmWave) ad-hoc network, where randomly distributed nodes are supported by a cache memory. Specifically, we study the optimal caching placement at the desirable mmWave node using a network model that accounts for the uncertainties in node locations and blockages. We then characterize the average success probability of content delivery. As a desirable side effect, certain factors like the density of nodes and increased antenna gain, can significantly increase the cache hit ratio in mmWave networks. However, a trade-off between the cache hit probability and the average successful content delivery probability with respect to the density of nodes is presented.

The narrow-beam operation in millimeter wave (mmWave) networks minimizes the network interference leading to noise-limited networks in contrast with interference-limited ones. The medium access control (MAC) layer throughput and interference management strategies heavily depend on the noise-limited or interference-limited regime. Yet, these regimes are not considered in recent mmWave MAC layer designs, which can potentially have disastrous consequences on the communication performance. In this paper, we investigate the performance of cache-enabled MAC-based mmWave ad hoc networks, where randomly distributed nodes are supported by a cache. The ad hoc nodes are modeled as homogenous Poisson point processes. Specifically, we study the optimal content placement (or caching placement) at desirable mmWave nodes using a network model that accounts for uncertainties both in node locations and blockages. We propose a contention-based multimedia delivery protocol to avoid collisions among the concurrent transmissions. Subsequently, only the node with smallest back-off timer among its contenders is allowed to transmit. We then characterize the average success probability of content delivery. We also characterize the cache hit ratio probability, and transmission probability of this system under essential factors, such as blockages, node density, path loss, and caching parameters.

Edge-caching has received much attention as an efficient technique to reduce delivery latency and network congestion during peak-traffic times by bringing data closer to end users. Existing works usually design caching algorithms separately from physical layer design. In this paper, we analyze edge-caching wireless networks by taking into account the caching capability when designing the signal transmission. Particularly, we investigate multi-layer caching where both base station (BS) and users are capable of storing content data in their local cache and analyze the performance of edge-caching wireless networks under two notable uncoded and coded caching strategies. First, we calculate backhaul and access throughputs of the two caching strategies for arbitrary values of cache size. The required backhaul and access throughputs are derived as a function of the BS and user cache sizes. Second, closed-form expressions for the system energy efficiency (EE) corresponding to the two caching methods are derived. Based on the derived formulas, the system EE is maximized via precoding vectors design and optimization while satisfying a predefined user request rate. Third, two optimization problems are proposed to minimize the content delivery time for the two caching strategies. Finally, numerical results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the two caching methods.

Fast growth of Internet content and availability of electronic devices such as smart phones and laptops has created an explosive content demand. As one of the 5G technology enablers, caching is a promising technique to off-load the network backhaul and reduce the content delivery delay. Satellite communications provides immense area coverage and high data rate, hence, it can be used for large-scale content placement in the caches. In this work, we propose using hybrid mono/multi-beam satellite-terrestrial backhaul network for off-line edge caching of cellular base stations in order to reduce the traffic of terrestrial network. The off-line caching approach is comprised of content placement and content delivery phases. The content placement phase is performed based on local and global content popularities assuming that the content popularity follows Zipf-like distribution. In addition, we propose an approach to generate local content popularities based on a reference Zipf-like distribution to keep the correlation of content popularity. Simulation results show that the hybrid satellite-terrestrial architecture considerably reduces the content placement time while sustaining the cache hit ratio quite close to the upper-bound compared to the satellite-only method.

This work studies the performance of a cooperative network which consists of two channel-coded sources, multiple relays, and one destination. Due to the spectral efficiency constraint, we assume that a single time slot is dedicated to relaying. Conventional network-coded based cooperation (NCC) selects the best relay which uses network coding to serve the two sources simultaneously. It is shown that NCC, however, only achieves diversity of order two regardless of the number of available relays and the channel code. In this paper, we propose a novel partial relaying based cooperation (PARC) scheme to improve the system diversity in the finite signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime. Firstly, closed-form expressions for the system bit error rate (BER) and diversity order of PARC are derived as a function of the operating SNR value and the minimum distance of the channel code. Secondly, we analytically show that the proposed PARC achieves full diversity order in the finite SNR regime, given that an appropriate channel code is used. Finally, numerical results verify our analysis and demonstrate a large SNR gain of PARC over NCC in the SNR region of interest.

The employment of a massive number of antennas in multiple-input multiple-output systems, known as massive MIMO, has drawn a new horizon for future communications systems to support a very large number of users. However, the actual number of active users in massive MIMO are limited by pilots training via the coherence time of the communication channel which is inversely proportional to the user velocity. The current model applies this coherence time for every user to design multiuser massive MIMO, which might result in a suboptimal solution since the users usually move at different speeds in practice. In this paper, we investigate multiuser massive MIMO by taking into consideration the differences in user velocities. In particular, two multiuser models are proposed to maximize the per-user spectral efficiency and the number of served users, respectively. System capacity of the proposed models is provided in analytical expression. Finally, numerical results demonstrate the advantages of our proposed models compared with the reference model.

Content caching is an efficient technique to reduce delivery latency and system congestion during peak-traffic times by bringing data closer to end users. Existing works on caching usually assume symmetric networks with identical user requests distribution, which might be in contrast to practical scenarios where the number of users is usually arbitrary. In this paper, we investigate a cache-assisted heterogeneous network in which edge nodes or base stations (BSs) are capable of storing content data in their local cache. We consider general practical scenarios where each edge node is serving an arbitrary number of users. First, we derive an optimal storage allocation over the BSs to minimize the shared backhaul throughput for a uncoded caching policy. Second, a novel coded caching strategy is proposed to further reduce the shared backhaul's load. Finally, the effectiveness of our proposed caching strategy is demonstrated via numerical results.

In the present paper, we investigate the design and optimization for fronhaul links in cloud radio access networks (C-RAN). Existing C-RAN designs rely on the instantaneous network-wide channel state information (CSI), which might impose a significant overhead due to the potential large-scale of C-RAN. To overcome this limitation, we optimize C-RAN based on the average performance metrics which only require the second-order statistics of the fading channels. Firstly, a tight upper bound of the block error rate (BLER) over Rayleigh fading channels is derived in closed-form expression, through which some insights on C-RAN are drawn: i) full diversity order, which is equal to the number of RRHs, is achievable with respect to the signal to compression plus noise ratio; and ii) the BLER is limited below by either compression or Gaussian noises. Secondly, based on the derived bound, a compression optimization is proposed to minimize the fronthaul transmission rate while satisfying some predefined BLER constraints. The premise of the proposed optimization originates from practical scenarios where most applications tolerate a non-zero BLER. Finally, a fronthaul rate allocation scheme is proposed to minimize the system BLER. It is proved that the proposed allocation scheme, which imposes uniform compression noise across the RRHs, approaches the optimal allocation as the total fronthauls' bandwidth increases.

Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) is a promising candidate for future mobile networks to sustain the exponentially increasing demand for data rate. The centralized architecture enables C-RAN to exploit multi-cell cooperation and interference management effectively. In C-RAN, one baseband unit (BBU) communicates with users through distributed Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) which are connected to the BBU via high capacity, low latency fronthaul links and perform ``soft" relaying. However, the architecture of C-RAN imposes a shortage of fronthaul bandwidth because raw In-phase/Quadrature-phase (I/Q) samples are exchanged between the RRHs and the BBU. In this paper, we leverage on advanced signal processing to improve the compression efficiency in fronthaul uplinks. Specifically, we propose a joint decoding algorithm at the BBU that exploits the correlation among the RRHs and jointly performs decompressing and decoding. An upper bound of the Block Error Rate (BLER) of the proposed algorithm is derived using pair-wise error probability analysis. Based on the BLER upper bound, we propose an adaptive compression scheme which minimizes the fronthaul transmission rate while satisfying a target quality of service constrain on the BLER. Our proposed adaptive compressor originates from practical scenarios in which most applications tolerate certain non-zero BLER thresholds.

Network Coded Cooperation (NCC) is known to provide full diversity order and high spectral efficiency for uncoded cooperative networks. However, the understanding of NCC applied to signals that have been protected by some Forward Error Correction (FEC) codes is still limited. This letter analyzes the diversity order attainable by NCC with channel coding (Coded-NCC) in a network topology with multiple sources, one relay and in the presence of fast Rayleigh fading. Due to the difficulty of characterizing the exchange of information between the network decoder and the channel decoder, iterative network and channel decoding algorithms are usually studied with the aid of simulations. In this letter, we overcome this limitation by proposing a near-optimal receiver that performs network decoding and channel decoding in a single decoding step of an equivalent super code. An upper bound and a tight approximation of the Bit Error Rate (BER) for all sources are derived. Based on the upper bound, we analytically show that Coded-NCC achieves a diversity order equal to 2f, where f is the minimum distance of the FEC code. This result generalizes those available for cooperative networks in the absence of channel coding (Uncoded-NCC), where the diversity order is equal to 2, as well as those available for coded transmission but without cooperation, where the diversity order is equal to f.

Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) has recently attracted much attention as a promising architecture for future mobile networks to sustain the exponential growth of data rate. In C-RAN, one data processing center or baseband unit (BBU) communicates with users via distributed remote radio heads (RRHs), which are connected to the BBU via high capacity, low latency fronthaul links. In this paper, we study the compression on fronthaul uplinks and propose a joint decompression algorithm at the BBU. The central premise behind the proposed algorithm is to exploit the correlation between RRHs. Our contribution is threefold. First, we propose a joint decompression and detection (JDD) algorithm which jointly performs decompressing and detecting. The JDD algorithm takes into consideration both the fading and compression effect in a single decoding step. Second, block error rate (BLER) of the proposed algorithm is analyzed in closed-form by using pair-wise error probability analysis. Third, based on the analyzed BLER, we propose adaptive compression schemes subject to quality of service (QoS) constraints to minimize the fronthaul transmission rate while satisfying the pre-defined target QoS. As a dual problem, we also propose a scheme to minimize the signal distortion subject to fronthaul rate constraint. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed adaptive compression schemes can achieve a compression ratio of 300% in experimental setups.

In this paper, we study outage probability (OP) and diversity order of a M-source and N-relay wireless network that combines network coding (NC) and relay selection (RS). More specifically, a decode-and-forward (DF) relaying protocol is considered and the network-encoding vectors at the relays are assumed to constitute a maximum distance separable (MDS) code. Single relay selection (SRS) and multiple relay selection (MRS) protocols are investigated, where the best relay and the L best relays forward the network-coded packets to the destination, respectively. An accurate mathematical framework for computing the OP is provided and from its direct inspection the following conclusions on the achievable diversity are drawn: 1) the SRS protocol achieves diversity order equal to two regardless of M and N and 2) the MRS protocol achieves diversity order equal to L + 1 if L <; MandequaltoN + 1 if L ≥ M.These analytical findings are substantiated with the aid of Monte Carlo simulations, which also show that RS provides a better OP than NC based on repetition coding if L ≥ M.

This paper studies the four-node Multiple Access Relay Channel (MARC) under quasi-static block Rayleigh fading channels and Gaussian noise environment. A relay employs Demodulate-and-Forward (DMF) protocol in order to help two channel-encoded sources to communicate with a destination. The contributions of the paper are threefold: i) we propose a Near Optimal Joint Network/Channel decoding (NO-JNCD) algorithm at the destination. The NO-JNCD employs Cooperative Maximum Ratio Combining (C-MRC) detector and the BCJR algorithm applied to a compound code which trellis consists of all possible states of two single trellises at sources; ii) we compute extended distance spectrum of the compound code containing input weights for each source and output weights on each fading channel; and iii) from the extended distance spectrum, we derive the Bit Error Rate (BER) upper bound for the compound code as well as for each source. It is shown by simulation that the proposed decoder provides performance very close to that of the optimal JNCD with both DMF and Decode-and-Forward (DF) relaying protocols. Finally, the analysis is checked by simulation.

In this paper, we study the three-node multiple-access relay channel under realistic operating conditions. More specifically, in our setup all wireless links are subjected to Rayleigh fading and Gaussian noise, and the relay node can be located at different distances from source and destination nodes. We assume that coded bits are fully-interleaved, so that the transmitted symbols are mutually independent. By exploiting factor graph representation, we propose a joint network/channel decoding algorithm, which takes into account decoding errors introduced by the relay node. The convergence of the proposed iterative decoding algorithm is studied through EXIT chart analysis. The proposed decoder is compared with a recently proposed algorithm, which employs the demodulate-and-forward protocol and works on coded bits, and it is shown that it provides better performance. More specifically, for a bit error rate (BER) equal to 1e−3, it is 1.5dB better when the relay is located near the destination and 2.0dB better when the relay is in between source and destination.

In this paper, we investigate joint network and channel decoding algorithms for the multiple-access relay channel. We consider a realistic reference scenario with Rayleigh fading over all the wireless links, including the source-to-relay channels. Our contribution is twofold: i) first, we develop the quasi-optimal joint network and channel decoder by taking into account possible errors over the source-to-relay channels, and ii) second, we propose a low-complexity iterative joint network and channel decoding algorithm, which reduces the number of channel decoders with respect to state-of-the-art solutions. Our numerical results show that: i) in fully-interleaved Rayleigh fading channels, the proposed solution provides almost the same bit error probability as the quasi-optimal scheme but with a reduction in complexity of approximately the 65%, and ii) in Rayleigh block-fading channels, the proposed scheme yields almost the same bit error probability as state-of-the-art solutions but with a reduction in complexity of approximately the 30%.