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As 5G networks strive to support advanced time-critical applications, such as immersive Extended Reality (XR), cloud gaming, and autonomous driving, the demand for Real-time Broadband Communication (RTBC) grows. In this article, we present the main mechanisms of Low Latency, Low Loss, and Scalable Throughput (L4S). Subsequently, we investigate the support and challenges of L4S technology in the latest 3GPP 5G-Advanced Release 18 (R18) standard. Our case study, using a prototype system for a real-time communication (RTC) application, demonstrates the superiority of L4S technology. The experimental results show that, compared with the GCC algorithm, the proposed L4S-GCC algorithm can reduce the stalling rate by 1.51%-2.80% and increase the bandwidth utilization by 11.4%-31.4%. The results emphasize the immense potential of L4S technology in enhancing transmission performance in time-critical applications., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible

Extended Reality (XR) is an important service in the 5G network and in future 6G networks. In contrast to traditional video on demand services, real-time XR video is transmitted frame-by-frame, requiring low latency and being highly sensitive to network fluctuations. In this paper, we model the quality of experience (QoE) for real-time XR video transmission on a frame-by-frame basis. Based on the proposed QoE model, we formulate an optimization problem that maximizes QoE with constraints on wireless resources and long-term energy consumption. We utilize Lyapunov optimization to transform the original problem into a single-frame optimization problem and then allocate wireless subchannels. We propose an adaptive XR video bitrate algorithm that employs a Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) based Deep Q-Network (DQN) algorithm for video bitrate selection. Through numerical results, we show that our proposed algorithm outperforms the baseline algorithms, with the average QoE improvements of 0.04 to 0.46. Specifically, compared to baseline algorithms, the proposed algorithm reduces average video quality variations by 29% to 50% and improves the frame transmission success rate by 5% to 48%., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

Extended reality (XR) is one of the most important applications of beyond 5G and 6G networks. Real-time XR video transmission presents challenges in terms of data rate and delay. In particular, the frame-by-frame transmission mode of XR video makes real-time XR video very sensitive to dynamic network environments. To improve the users' quality of experience (QoE), we design a cross-layer transmission framework for real-time XR video. The proposed framework allows the simple information exchange between the base station (BS) and the XR server, which assists in adaptive bitrate and wireless resource scheduling. We utilize the cross-layer information to formulate the problem of maximizing user QoE by finding the optimal scheduling and bitrate adjustment strategies. To address the issue of mismatched time scales between two strategies, we decouple the original problem and solve them individually using a multi-agent-based approach. Specifically, we propose the multi-step Deep Q-network (MS-DQN) algorithm to obtain a frame-priority-based wireless resource scheduling strategy and then propose the Transformer-based Proximal Policy Optimization (TPPO) algorithm for video bitrate adaptation. The experimental results show that the TPPO+MS-DQN algorithm proposed in this study can improve the QoE by 3.6% to 37.8%. More specifically, the proposed MS-DQN algorithm enhances the transmission quality by 49.9%-80.2%., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2402.01180

Extended reality (XR) is one of the most important applications of 5G. For real-time XR video transmission in 5G networks, a low latency and high data rate are required. In this paper, we propose a resource allocation scheme based on frame-priority scheduling to meet these requirements. The optimization problem is modelled as a frame-priority-based radio resource scheduling problem to improve transmission quality. We propose a scheduling framework based on multi-step Deep Q-network (MS-DQN) and design a neural network model based on convolutional neural network (CNN). Simulation results show that the scheduling framework based on frame-priority and MS-DQN can improve transmission quality by 49.9%-80.2%., Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures

The high computational complexity and energy consumption of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms hinder their application in augmented reality (AR) systems. However, mobile edge computing (MEC) makes it possible to solve this problem. This paper considers the scene of completing video-based AI inference tasks in the MEC system. We formulate a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem (MINLP) to reduce inference delays, energy consumption and to improve recognition accuracy. We give a simplified expression of the inference complexity model and accuracy model through derivation and experimentation. The problem is then solved iteratively by using alternating optimization. Specifically, by assuming that the offloading decision is given, the problem is decoupled into two sub-problems, i.e., the resource allocation problem for the devices set that completes the inference tasks locally, and that for the devices set that offloads tasks. For the problem of offloading decision optimization, we propose a Channel-Aware heuristic algorithm. To further reduce the complexity, we propose an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) based distributed algorithm. The ADMM-based algorithm has a low computational complexity that grows linearly with the number of devices. Numerical experiments show the effectiveness of proposed algorithms. The trade-off relationship between delay, energy consumption, and accuracy is also analyzed., Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2208.01860

Network slicing is a critical driver for guaranteeing the diverse service level agreements (SLA) in 5G and future networks. Inter-slice radio resource allocation (IS-RRA) in the radio access network (RAN) is very important. However, user mobility brings new challenges for optimal IS-RRA. This paper first proposes a soft and hard hybrid slicing framework where a common slice is introduced to realize a trade-off between isolation and spectrum efficiency (SE). To address the challenges posed by user mobility, we propose a two-step deep learning-based algorithm: joint long short-term memory (LSTM)-based network state prediction and deep Q network (DQN)-based slicing strategy. In the proposal, LSTM networks are employed to predict traffic demand and the location of each user in a slicing window level. Moreover, channel gain is mapped by location and a radio map. Then, the predicted channel gain and traffic demand are input to the DQN to output the precise slicing adjustment. Finally, experiment results confirm the effectiveness of our proposed slicing framework: the slices' SLA can be guaranteed well, and the proposed algorithm can achieve near-optimal performance in terms of the SLA satisfaction ratio, isolation degree and SE., Comment: 16 pages, 10 fogures, accepted by China Communications. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2204.03502

The high computational complexity and high energy consumption of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms hinder their application in augmented reality (AR) systems. This paper considers the scene of completing video-based AI inference tasks in the mobile edge computing (MEC) system. We use multiply-and-accumulate operations (MACs) for problem analysis and optimize delay and energy consumption under accuracy constraints. To solve this problem, we first assume that offloading policy is known and decouple the problem into two subproblems. After solving these two subproblems, we propose an iterative-based scheduling algorithm to obtain the optimal offloading policy. We also experimentally discuss the relationship between delay, energy consumption, and inference accuracy., Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Globecom2022

Network slicing is a critical driver for guaranteeing the diverse service level agreements (SLA) in 5G and future networks. Recently, deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has been widely utilized for resource allocation in network slicing. However, existing related works do not consider the performance loss associated with the initial exploration phase of DRL. This paper proposes a new performance-guaranteed slicing strategy with a soft and hard hybrid slicing setting. Mainly, a common slice setting is applied to guarantee slices' SLA when training the neural network. Moreover, the resource of the common slice tends to precisely redistribute to slices with the training of DRL until it converges. Furthermore, experiment results confirm the effectiveness of our proposed slicing framework: the slices' SLA of the training phase can be guaranteed, and the proposed algorithm can achieve the near-optimal performance in terms of the SLA satisfaction ratio, isolation degree and spectrum maximization after convergence., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted by VTC2022-Spring

With the rapid development of indoor location-based services (LBSs), the demand for accurate localization keeps growing as well. To meet this demand, we propose an indoor localization algorithm based on graph convolutional network (GCN). We first model access points (APs) and the relationships between them as a graph, and utilize received signal strength indication (RSSI) to make up fingerprints. Then the graph and the fingerprint will be put into GCN for feature extraction, and get classification by multilayer perceptron (MLP).In the end, experiments are performed under a 2D scenario and 3D scenario with floor prediction. In the 2D scenario, the mean distance error of GCN-based method is 11m, which improves by 7m and 13m compare with DNN-based and CNN-based schemes respectively. In the 3D scenario, the accuracy of predicting buildings and floors are up to 99.73% and 93.43% respectively. Moreover, in the case of predicting floors and buildings correctly, the mean distance error is 13m, which outperforms DNN-based and CNN-based schemes, whose mean distance errors are 34m and 26m respectively.

Conventional schemes often require extra reference signals or more complicated algorithms to improve the time-of-arrival (TOA) estimation accuracy. However, in this letter, we propose to generate fine-grained features from the full band and resource block (RB) based reference signals, and calculate the cross-correlations accordingly to improve the observation resolution as well as the TOA estimation results. Using the spectrogram-like cross-correlation feature map, we apply the machine learning technology with decoupled feature extraction and fitting to understand the variations in the time and frequency domains and project the features directly into TOA results. Through numerical examples, we show that the proposed high accurate TOA estimation with fine-grained feature generation can achieve at least 51% root mean square error (RMSE) improvement in the static propagation environments and 38 ns median TOA estimation errors for multipath fading environments, which is equivalently 36% and 25% improvement if compared with the existing MUSIC and ESPRIT algorithms, respectively.

Positioning is becoming a key component in many Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The main challenges and limitations are the narrow bandwidth, low power and low cost which reduces the accuracy of the time of arrival (TOA) estimation. In this paper, we consider the positioning scenario of Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) that can benefit from observed time difference of arrival (OTDOA). By applying the deep learning based technique, we explore the generalization and feature extraction abilities of neural networks to tackle the aforementioned challenges. As demonstrated in the numerical experiments, the proposed algorithm can be used in different inter-site distance situations and results in a 15% and 50% positioning accuracy improvement compared with Gauss-Newton method in line-of-sight (LOS) scenario and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenario respectively., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures