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Cooperative caching can unify storage across edge clouds and provide efficient delivery of popular contents under effective content placement. However, the placement and delivery are non-trivial in cooperative caching due to the decentralized property of edge clouds, as well as the temporal and spatial correlation of the placement. We propose a new distributed online learning approach to jointly optimize content placement and delivery without the a-priori knowledge on file popularity and link availability. Content placement and delivery can be asymptotically optimized in real-time by running distributed online learning at individual edge servers by exploiting stochastic gradient descent (SGD). The proposed approach can allow operations at different timescales by integrating mini-batch learning for farsighted content placement. The optimality loss, stemming from the different timescales, can asymptotically reduce, as the SGD stepsize declines. Simulations confirm that the proposed approach outperforms existing techniques in terms of cache hit ratio and cost effectiveness. Insights are shed on the optimal placement of popular contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to produce an effective online scheduling technique, where a base station (BS) schedules the transmissions of energy harvesting-powered Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices only based on the (differently outdated) in-band reports of the devices on their states. We establish a new primal-dual learning framework, which learns online the optimal proactive schedules to maximize the time-average throughput of all the devices. Batch gradient descent is designed to enable stochastic gradient descent (SGD)-based dual learning to learn the network dynamics from the outdated reports. Replay memory is deployed to allow online convex optimization (OCO)-based primal learning to predict channel conditions and prevent over-fitting. We also decentralize the online learning between the BS and devices, and speed up learning by leveraging the instantaneous knowledge of the devices on their states. We prove that the proposed framework asymptotically converges to the global optimum, and the impact of the outdated knowledge of the BS diminishes. Simulation results confirm that the proposed approach can increasingly outperform state of the art, as the number of devices grows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating millimeter Wave (mmWave) and long-term evolution (LTE) sub-6 GHz bands to provide wireless services for high-speed rails (HSRs) is a promising solution to balance the ever-rising service demand and operational cost. In this paper, we optimize the network interface selection of the mmWave and LTE interfaces for HSR communications, to minimize the operational cost while satisfying the service requests of passengers. The network interface selection problem is formulated as a finite-horizon discrete-time Markov decision process (MDP) problem. Based on the file requests and associated deadlines of a passenger and the train schedule, we solve the MDP problem ahead-of-time by using dynamic programming (DP) and achieve optimal interface selection for each waypoint along the railways. Further, by exploiting the subadditivity and superadditivity of the considered problem, we reveal that an optimal switch of interfaces is only triggered at the moment when the remaining undelivered data or the elapsed time reaches their specific thresholds. Based on the thresholds, the optimal interface selection can be directly achieved for every waypoint, hence eliminating the need for DP and substantially reducing the computational complexity. The proposed algorithms are evaluated with practical train schedules. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can substantially reduce the operational cost by 35% in our considered simulation setting, as compared to existing alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated to understand the increasingly severe threat of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the confidentiality of terrestrial radio links, this paper analyzes the ergodic and $\epsilon $ -outage secrecy capacities of the links in the presence of multiple cooperative aerial eavesdroppers flying autonomously in three-dimensional (3D) spaces and exploiting selection combining (SC) or maximal ratio combining (MRC). The “cut-off” density of the eavesdroppers under which the secrecy capacities vanish is identified. By decoupling the analysis of the random trajectories from the random channel fading, closed-form approximations with almost sure convergence to the secrecy capacities are devised. The analysis is extended to study the impact of the oscillator phase noises and finite memories of the aerial eavesdroppers on the secrecy performance of the ground link. Validated by simulations, the cut-off density only depends on the range of the link in the case of SC eavesdropping, while it depends on the flight region of the eavesdroppers in the case of MRC eavesdropping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IoT provides ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive intelligence. Challenges arise from the data-intensive applications pertaining to IoT. The major contribution of this article is a new asymptotically optimal, fully decentralized, real-time framework which seamlessly integrates wireless computation offloading and fog computing in IoT networks with random traffic variations over space and time. Other enabling techniques are discussed to address practical challenges, such as outdated incentive for the cooperation of multiple service providers, massive access requests within limited system bandwidth, and computing acceleration. The new framework is able to provide ubiquitous computing for continuously increasing IoT services. Numerical experiments indicate that ubiquitous fog computing can substantially improve throughput, reduce computing latency, and cut off signaling overhead, without compromising the optimality of network operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the threat that an aerial eavesdropper can pose to terrestrial wireless communications, from an information-theoretic point of view. The achievable ergodic and the average $\epsilon $ -outage secrecy rates with no channel state information at the transmitter (i.e., with no CSIT) are analyzed for a transmitter–receiver pair on the ground, in the presence of an aerial eavesdropper which flies a random trajectory following a smooth turn (ST) mobility model in a three-dimensional (3D) space. The ST mobility model induces a uniform distribution (of the eavesdropper’s waypoints) within the considered 3D volume. Closed-form asymptotic approximations of the achievable secrecy rates are derived based on the almost sure convergence and non-trivial mathematical manipulations. Validated by simulations, our analysis is tight and reveals that the ground transmission is particularly vulnerable to aerial eavesdropping which can be carried out in a distance without being noticed. 3D spherical regions are identified, within which the secrecy rates vanish. This sheds useful insights to protect terrestrial wireless networks from aerial eavesdropping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As demand for wireless connectivity increases, communication technology is moving toward integrating terrestrial networks with space networks. Creating this integrated space and terrestrial network (ISTN) is critically important for industries such as logistics, mining, agriculture, fisheries, and defense. However, a number of significant technological challenges must be overcome for ISTN through low-cost airborne platforms and high-data-rate backbone links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the link capacity between autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with random three-dimensional (3-D) trajectories. This is distinctively different from existing works typically under the assumption of either two-dimensional (2-D) or deterministic trajectories, and particularly interesting to applications such as surveillance and air combat. The key idea is that we geometrically derive the probability distributions of the UAV-to-UAV (U2U) distances which, by exploiting the Jensen's inequality, can be translated to the closed-form bounds for the capacity between UAVs, and between UAVs and ground stations. Another important aspect is that we extrapolate the idea to dense UAV networks, and analyze the impact of network densification, imperfect channel state information, and interference from ground transmitters on the capacity. Corroborated by simulations, our analysis shows that a U2U link with random 2-D trajectories is superior in terms of capacity due to its short average link distance. It is also revealed that a UAV-to-ground link can incur substantially lower capacity than a U2U link even in the case the 3-D coverage of the UAVs is the same, as the result of its longer average link length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the prominent dilemma between capacity and reliability in heterogeneous ultra-dense distributed networks, and advocates a new measure of effective capacity to quantify the maximum sustainable data rate of a link while preserving the quality of service of the link in such networks. Recent breakthroughs are brought forth in developing the theory of the effective capacity in heterogeneous ultra-dense distributed networks. Potential applications of the effective capacity are demonstrated on the admission control, power control, and resource allocation of such networks, with substantial gains revealed over existing technologies. This new measure is of particular interest to ultra-dense deployment of the emerging 5G wireless networks in the unlicensed spectrum, leveraging the capacity gain brought by the use of the unlicensed band and the stringent reliability sustained by 5G in future heterogeneous network environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid array is able to leverage array gains, transceiver sizes, and costs for massive multiple-input-multiple-output systems in millimeter-wave frequencies. Challenges arise from the estimation of angle-of-arrival (AoA) in localized hybrid arrays, due to the array structure and the resultant estimation ambiguities and susceptibility to noises. This paper eliminates the ambiguities and enhances the tolerance to the noises based on our new discoveries. Particularly, by designing new subarray-specific time-varying phase shifts, we discover that the cross-correlations between the gains of consecutive subarrays have consistent signs except the strongest. This enables the cross-correlations to be deterministically calibrated and constructively combined for the noise-tolerant estimation of the propagation phase offset between adjacent subarrays. Given the phase offset, the AoA can be estimated unambiguously with few training symbols. We also derive a closed-form lower bound for the mean square error of AoA estimation. Corroborated by simulations, our approach is able to dramatically improve estimation accuracy by orders of magnitude while reducing complexity and training symbols, as compared to the state of the art. With the ambiguities eliminated, the estimation errors of our method asymptotically approach the lower bound, as training symbols increase. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mobile edge computing is of particular interest to Internet of Things (IoT), where inexpensive simple devices can get complex tasks offloaded to and processed at powerful infrastructure. Scheduling is challenging due to stochastic task arrivals and wireless channels, congested air interface, and more prominently, prohibitive feedbacks from thousands of devices. In this paper, we generate asymptotically optimal schedules tolerant to out-of-date network knowledge, thereby relieving stringent requirements on feedbacks. A perturbed Lyapunov function is designed to stochastically maximize a network utility balancing throughput and fairness. A knapsack problem is solved per slot for the optimal schedule, provided up-to-date knowledge on the data and energy backlogs of all devices. The knapsack problem is relaxed to accommodate out-of-date network states. Encapsulating the optimal schedule under up-to-date network knowledge, the solution under partial out-of-date knowledge preserves asymptotic optimality, and allows devices to self-nominate for feedback. Corroborated by simulations, our approach is able to dramatically reduce feedbacks at no cost of optimality. The number of devices that need to feed back is reduced to less than 60 out of a total of 5000 IoT devices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

License-assisted access (LAA) is a promising technology to offload dramatically increasing cellular traffic to unlicensed bands. Challenges arise from the provision of quality-of-service (QoS) and the quantification of capacity, due to the distributed and heterogeneous nature of LAA and legacy systems (such as Wi-Fi) coexisting in the bands. In this paper, we develop new theories of the effective capacity to measure LAA under statistical QoS requirements. A new four-state semi-Markovian model is developed to capture transmission collisions, random backoffs, and lossy wireless channels of LAA in distributed heterogeneous network environments. A closed-form expression for the effective capacity is derived to comprehensively analyze LAA. The four-state model is further abstracted to an insightful two-state equivalent which reveals the concavity of the effective capacity in terms of transmit rate. Validated by simulations, the concavity is exploited to maximize the effective capacity and effective energy efficiency of LAA, and provide significant improvements of 62.7% and 171.4%, respectively, over existing approaches. Our results are of practical value to holistic designs and deployments of LAA systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To maximize power transfer for inductively charging electric vehicles (EVs), charger and battery coils must be aligned. Wireless sensors can be installed to estimate misalignments; however, existing ranging techniques cannot satisfy the precision requirements of the misalignment estimation. We propose a high-precision wireless ranging and misalignment estimation scheme, where high precision is achieved by iteratively measuring, estimating, and aligning the coils. Another key aspect is to convert the nonconvex misalignment estimation to a more tractable problem with a convex objective. We develop a conditional gradient descent method to solve the problem, which performs gradient descent (or conditional gradient descent on the boundary of the search space) and projects out-of-boundary points back into the space. Employing experimentally validated models, we show that our scheme can achieve 92% of the efficiency of perfectly aligned coils in 90% of operations, and tolerate correlated distance measurement errors. In contrast, the prior art is susceptible to correlation, undergoing a significant efficiency degradation of 18.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Efficient discovery and effective sharing of spectrum opportunities are the most challenging issues in a multi-channel cognitive radio network (CRN) with multiple secondary users (SUs). In this paper, we propose a novel spectrum sensing and access protocol in CRNs where SUs are allowed to sequentially sense two channels in a single time slot and are coordinated to access the potentially unused channels. The proposed protocol is formulated as a channel selection problem coupled with a channel assignment problem. We subsequently investigate the myopic sensing policy and propose a Markov chain-based greedy channel assignment scheme (MCGA) to maximize the expected total SU throughput. Moreover, we extend our proposal to the scenario with imperfect spectrum sensing and obtain the optimal sensing time to enhance the performance improvement by considering spectrum sensing and spectrum access in a joint manner. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our proposal in a saturated network. Numerical and simulation results demonstrate that compared to the existing work, our approach can achieve significant performance improvements in SU throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Link aggregation, or multi-band striping, has been used in wireless backhaul systems to overcome the limitations of bandwidth and transmission range. Work-conserving and in-sequence delivery are essential but conflicting requirements in multi-band striping systems. Previous schemes can achieve one or the other, but not both. The heterogeneous channel and time varying data rate in multi-band wireless backhaul systems present additional challenges. We aim at designing a multi-band striping algorithm to achieve both work-conserving and in-sequence delivery in the heterogeneous time-varying multi-band wireless backhaul system. We propose a parallel processing architecture for multi-band aggregation, and derive the necessary conditions for such system to achieve sequence preserving and work conserving. An optimum set of timing controls is developed and proved to provide the best performance. We design a work-conserving in-sequence striping algorithm and prove it to be sequence preserving and work conserving. The algorithm is then extended to practical data granularity. Performance analysis and simulation results demonstrate that our designs are able to preserve data sequence, reduce delay, and achieve 100% channel utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relays enabled with multiuser MIMO techniques have great potential to mining vehicle safety applications. However, they are yet to be practical due to high scheduling overhead in mobile, radio-unfriendly, mining environments. A new decentralized relay-assisted multiuser MIMO approach is proposed, which cuts the overhead by 80% and enables relay-assisted multiuser MIMO to be implemented in practice. This approach is a new distributed participatory downlink transmission method, where both the relays and destinations participate in the scheduling decisions. A new recursive algorithm is also developed to optimally quantize the channel conditions of the vehicles, thereby minimizing the feedback requirement. Analytical results, confirmed by simulations, show that the proposed approach is able to achieve 97.6% of the sum-rate upper bound of the network, using only three bits to characterize the channel condition of each vehicle. In terms of throughput, the proposed decentralized scheme can perform 45.2% better than the existing centralized scheme. The proposed approach is compatible with industrial communication standards and can be implemented with commercial industrial communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Small cells with wireless backhaul are promising, whereas challenges of severe overlapping coverage and strong interference are yet to be addressed. Coordinating small cells could resolve the challenges; however, existing multicell coordinated beamforming techniques involve high cost of communication overhead, synchronization and backhaul. Such problems may deteriorate in practical cellular applications, where there could be many users, each generating high channel feedback overhead to compete for an opportunity of being scheduled, and the downlink data signals of the coordinated cells need to be precisely synchronized at each of the users. We propose a new scheme, which cuts the overhead by 80% and enables the coordination to be practically implemented in a decentralized manner. Our scheme is a user-centric downlink scheduling approach, where mobile terminals trigger and participate in the scheduling decisions of small cells. We also develop a new recursive algorithm to optimize the quantization levels of mobile terminals' feedback, minimizing the feedback requirement. Analysis, confirmed by simulations, shows that our scheme is able to achieve 94.4% of the sum-rate upper-bound which can only be approached by idealized centralized coordination. In terms of throughput, given the 80% reduced overhead, our scheme is 139.5% better than the idealized centralized coordination approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]