This paper provides use cases to adapt 5G sidelink technology to enable multi-hop User Equipment (UE)-to-UE (U2U) and UE-to-Network relaying in 3GPP standards. Such a capability could enable groups of users to communicate with each other when operating at the periphery or outside a network's coverage area, with commercial and public safety benefits. This paper compares routing protocols to enable sidelink with U2U relay to support a Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET). A gap analysis of current 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 18 (R-18) specifications is performed to determine the missing procedures to enable multi-hop U2U relaying, along with a proposed candidate protocol to fill the gap. The candidate protocol can be submitted as a contribution to 3GPP TSG Service and System Aspects (SA) Working Group 2 (WG2) as proposed changes to the 5G architecture in 3GPP Release 19 (R-19).

Cross-layer optimization is an effective mechanism to improve wireless system and network performance and efficiency. Cross-layer optimization is not a new technique, but it can be applied effectively to different wireless technologies to handle different problems without violating the wireless standards. Utility functions are constructed from measurements of the different OSI layers to provide input into our cross-layer optimization engine. ZigBee technology was chosen as the test platform to demonstrate our proposed mechanism.

Although many outdoor location techniques have been proposed, there is no cost-effective indoor location technique. This paper presents a practical indoor location technique applicable to all 2G and 3G cellular/PCS indoor systems. Two typical indoor cellular/PCS architectures are considered. Recommendation for how to deploy the indoor location system with respect to each architecture is given. Simulation has been performed to validate the proposed concept. Also discussed is how to design a cost-effective indoor base station considering location service as one of the critical requirements.

Previously, a new class of switching networks, called Log/sub 2/ (N, m, p) networks, has been created for high-speed switching systems. The basic switching element used is a 2/spl times/2 crossbar. Although it is generally true that different sizes of switching elements can be used as the basic building block for the same design paradigm, the results are quite different. The sizes of the basic building block are often a trade-off among many factors such as combinatorial power, computation time of routing, fault tolerance, hardware complexity, and growth rate of a network. The authors study the design principle for Log/sub 2d/ (N, m, p) systems in this paper where d/spl ges/1.>

A class of rearrangeable nonblocking networks is presented. The proposed networks are fault-tolerant, self-routing, and intended for a very-high-speed environment. Self-routing networks have one major problem when applied to switching: they are blocking networks. To solve this problem, two methods have been used to create self-routing rearrangeable nonblocking networks: horizontal cascading (HC) and vertical stacking (VS). The authors unify the two approaches and propose a novel class of switching networks. The proposed design principle allows the best tradeoffs among design parameters such as fault tolerance, hardware cost, and the frequency of rearrangement activities. A study of the frequency of rearrangement activities is also presented.>

A class of self-routing strictly nonblocking switching networks, called the Log/sub 2/ (N, m, p) network, is introduced. The proposed networks are self-routing and have O (Log/sub 2/ N) stages between each inlet-outlet pair. The self-routing capability makes it attractive for high-speed switching; the small number of crosspoints between each inlet-outlet pair also makes the network well suited for many nonlogic photonic switching technologies. The complexity and the fault-tolerant capability of the strictly nonblocking Log/sub 2/ (N, m, p) network are analyzed. To show the merits of the proposed network, the authors compare it to the Cantor network, which is also strictly nonblocking and has similar characteristics.>