Tutorial 2: Energy‐Neutral System‐Level Analysis and Optimization of 5G Wireless Networks

  • Monday, 27 June 2016, 14:00-17:30, Poseidon B

 

Speakers

  • Alessio Zappone (Technische Universitat Dresden, Germany)
  • Marco Di Renzo (Paris‐Saclay University, France)
  • Eduard Jorswieck (Technische Universitat Dresden, Germany)

 

Motivation and Context

The Internet of Things (IoT) will connect billions of devices by 2020. Such systems suppose batteries and/or energy harvesting from the environment, which also bets for very low energy devices. In order to enable IoT service capabilities, 5G wireless networks will need to bring a drastic energy efficiency improvement and will need to develop energy harvesting capabilities. This energy chase will cover low energy devices and network elements, and will rely on the availability of renewable energy sources, dedicated power sources, as well as the possibility of harvesting energy directly from the radio waves that are primarily used for data transmission. This leads to a new design space, where the availability of energy is not deterministic anymore but may depend on environmental factors, the interference may not necessarily be harmful as it may be a natural source electromagnetic‐based power to be used for replenishing the batteries of low‐energy devices, and the intended signals may be exploited for both data transmission and energy harvesting.This paradigm-shift introduces a new concept in the design of 5G wireless networks: energy-neutral networks are systems that not only make an efficient use of the available energy, but, more importantly, that operate in a complete self-powered fashion. The present tutorial provides the audience with a complete survey of the potential benefits, research challenges, implementation efforts and application of technologies and protocols for achieving energy-neutrality, as well as the mathematical tools for their modeling, analysis and optimization. This tutorial is unique of its kind, as it tackles both system-level modeling and optimization aspects, which are usually treated independently. Special focus will be put on two methodologies for enabling the system-level modeling and the system‐level and distributed optimization of energy-neutral 5G wireless networks: stochastic geometry and fractional programming. In the proposed tutorial, we illustrate how several candidate transmission technologies, communication protocols, and network architectures for 5G can be modeled, studied, optimized, and compared for their energy-neutral operation. This is the reason why this tutorial is expected to be of interest for people working both in academia and industry: it is intended to bridge theory and practice. It is, in addition, inspired by the keynote speech gave by Nicolas Demassieux (Orange Labs, France) at EuCNC 2015 that was held in Paris last year. It embraces, in fact, his dream that future networks (5G) are conceived by taking into account energy efficiency by design rather than by tweaking a capacity-optimized system. His motto was: “…from 7 AM in the morning, think energy first and then capacity… it is a change of mindset…” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCrp_tQpFc0&feature=player_embedded#t=399). The proposed tutorial, as a result, is expected to gather the interest of the attendees of EuCNC 2016, as it will present several solutions to make 5G networks energy-autonomous, by optimizing the use of energy resources and by simultaneously taking advantage of all available energy sources (renewable, man‐made radio frequency, etc.).

 

 

Structure and Content

The Internet of Things (IoT) will connect billions of de- vices by 2020. Such systems suppose batteries and/or energy harvesting from the environment, which also bets for very low energy devices. In order to enable IoT service capabilities, 5G wireless networks will need to bring a drastic energy efficiency improvement and will need to develop energy harvesting capabilities. This energy chase will cover low-energy devices and network elements, and will rely on the availability of renewable energy sources, dedicated power sources, as well as the possibility of harvesting energy directly from the radio waves that are primarily used for data transmission. This leads to a new design space, where the availability of energy is not deterministic anymore but may depend on environmental factors, the interference may not necessarily be harmful as it may be a natural source electromagnetic-based power to be used for replenishing the batteries of low-energy devices, and the intended signals may be exploited for both data transmis- sion and energy harvesting. This paradigm-shift introduces a new concept in the design of 5G wireless networks: energy- neutrality. Energy-neutral networks are systems that not only make an efficient use of the available energy, but, more importantly, that operate in a complete self-powered fashion. The present tutorial provides the audience with a complete survey of the potential benefits, research challenges, imple- mentation efforts and application of technologies and protocols for achieving energy-neutrality, as well as the mathematical tools for their modeling, analysis and optimization. This tutorial is unique of its kind, as it tackles both system-level modeling and optimization aspects, which are usually treated independently. Special focus will be put on two methodologies for enabling the system-level modeling and the system-level and distributed optimization of energy-neutral 5G wireless networks: stochastic geometry and fractional programming. In the proposed tutorial, we illustrate how several candidate trans- mission technologies, communication protocols, and network architectures for 5G can be modeled, studied, optimized, and compared for their energy-neutral operation.