Internet of radio and light: 5G building network radio and edge architecture

doi:10.23919/ICN.2020.0002

2020, Vol. 1

Issue (1): 37-57 doi: 10.23919/ICN.2020.0002

Internet of radio and light: 5G building network radio and edge architecture

Yue Zhang^*,Hequn Zhang,John Cosmas,Nawar Jawad,Kareem Ali,Ben Meunier,Adam Kapovits,Li-Ke Huang,Wei Li,Lina Shi,Xun Zhang,Jintao Wang,Israel Koffman,Muller Robert,Charilaos C. Zarakovitis

∙ Yue Zhang and Hequn Zhang are with the School of Engineering, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK. E-mail: hz148@leicester.ac.uk.
∙ John Cosmas, Nawar Jawad, Kareem Ali, and Ben Meunier are with Brunel University, London, UB8 3PH, UK. E-mail: John.Cosmas@Brunel.ac.uk; Nawar.Jawad@brunel.ac.uk; Kareem.Ali@brunel.ac.uk; Benjamin.Meunier@brunel.ac.uk.
∙ Adam Kapovits is with Eurescom GmBH, Heidelberg 69123, Germany. E-mail: kapovits@eurescom.eu.
∙ Li-Ke Huang and Wei Li are with Viavi Solutions, Stevenage, SG1 2AN, UK. E-mail: Li-Ke.huang@Viavisolutions.com; Wei. Li@Via.visolutions.com.
∙ Lina Shi and Xun Zhang are with Institut Supérieur D’électronique De Paris, Paris 75006, France. E-mail: lina. shi@ isep.fr; xun.zhang@isep.fr.
∙ Jintao Wang is with Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. E-mail: wangjitao@tsinghua.edu.cn.
∙ Israel Koffman is with RunEL Ltd, Rishon Lezion 7565502, Israel. E-mail: israelk@runel.net.
∙ Muller Robert is with Fraunhofer IIS, Ilmenau 98693, Germany. E-mail: mueller.robert@tu-ilmenau.de.
∙ Charilaos C. Zarakovitis is with National Centre of Scientific Research Demokritos, Agia Paraskevi 15341, Greece. E-mail: c.zarakovitis@iit.demokritos.gr.

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Abstract

The Internet of Radio-Light (IoRL) is a cutting-edge system paradigm to enable seamless 5G service provision in indoor environments, such as homes, hospitals, and museums. The system draws on innovative architectural structure that sits on the synergy between the Radio Access Network (RAN) technologies of millimeter Wave communications (mmWave) and Visible Light Communications (VLC) for improving network throughput, latency, and coverage compared to existing efforts. The aim of this paper is to introduce the IoRL system architecture and present the key technologies and techniques utilised at each layer of the system. Special emphasis is given in detailing the IoRL physical layer (Layer 1) and Medium Access Control layer (MAC, Layer 2) by means of describing their unique design characteristics and interfaces as well as the robust IoRL methods of improving the estimation accuracy of user positioning relying on uplink mmWave and downlink VLC measurements.

Key words： 5G Internet of Radio-Light (IoRL) Visible Light Communications (VLC) millimeter Wave communications (mmWave) Remote Radio Light Head (RRLH) Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Software Defined Network (SDN) positioning

Received: 17 February 2020 Online: 17 April 2020

Corresponding Authors: Yue Zhang

About author: Yue Zhang is an associate professor at Department of Engineering, University of Leicester. He received the BE and ME degrees from Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications in 2001 and 2004, respectively. In 2008, he received the PhD degree from Brunel University, UK where he also worked as a research engineer for the EU FP6 project—PLUTO. From 2008, he was a signal processing design engineer at Microwave Measurement Division-Europe, Anritsu Corp. He was responsible for the RF/IF and digital and DSP design for the measurement instruments for various wireless and broadcasting systems. From 2010, he joined Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Bedfordshire, Luton, UK as the reader in signal processing. He also worked at Royal Academy of Engineering, UK and Industrial Fellowship with Aeroflex Ltd. He currently leads EU Horizon 2020 5GPPP project IoRL as the innovator and the most important workpackage leader. He is also one of the commitee members of 5G PPP pre-standardization and 5G Architecture WG. His research interests are signal processing for 5G wireless and mobile systems, radio propagation model and multimedia, and wireless networks. He currently serves as the associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting and IEEE Access.|Hequn Zhang received the master’s degree in computer science and engineering from Halmstad University, Sweden in 2014. He is now a PhD student in wireless communication at University of Leicester, UK. His main research area involves channel measurement and modelling, NOMA/LDM, and index modulation technologies for 5G wireless network. Since 2018, he has been working on the mmWave/VLC channel measurement and implementation of 5G Layer 2 protocols in the IoRL project which is supported by European Commission Horizon 2020 Programme.|John Cosmas received the BEng degree in electronic engineering from Liverpool University in 1978 and the PhD degree from University of London in 1986. He is currently a professor of multimedia systems at the College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences, Brunel University London. He leads the 5G and Beyond Research Centre and is an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. His research interests are concerned with the development of multimedia networked systems applied to future of broadcasting, cellular communications, 2D/3D digital video/graphics media and the synergies between these technologies towards their application towards the benefit of the smart homes, cities environment, health, and societies. He has participated in twelve EU (Horizon 2020, IST, RACE, and ACTS) research projects and two EPSRC funded research projects since 1986, and led three of these (CISMUNDUS, PLUTO, and 3D MURALE). He has graduated 35 PhD and 4 MPhil students and published over 89 research journal papers and 198 conference papers. He leads a research team of 5 PhD students, whose research is concerned with management of heterogeneous visible light communications and millimetre wave networks for low latency broadband in buildings, internet of things for health and safety systems in hospitals 3D MIMO, and efficient software defined networks architectures.|Nawar Jawad received the master’s degree in wireless communication systems from Brunel University London, UK in 2009. He is now a PhD student in wireless communication systems at Brunel University London, UK. His main research area involves cloud computing and designing intelligent services for the end users. Since 2017, he has been working on designing an Intelligent Home IP Gateway (IHIPGW) for 5G indoor coverage network utilizing OpenStack virtual infrastructure manager and integrating the services in the form of VNFs, along with essential services to route the traffic efficiently amongst the available links.|Kareem Ali received the bachelor’s degree in computer systems engineering from Brunel University London, UK in 2017. Now he is a doctoral researcher, where his main area of research involves the development of 5G applications. Since 2017, he has been working on development of 5G indoor location data access and indoor monitoring and guiding.|Ben Meunier received the bachelor’s degree in electronic and electrical engineering from Brunel University London, UK in 2017. He is currently working as a doctoral researcher within the Horizon 2020 Internet of Radio Light (IoRL) project, focusing on the enhancement of Virtual Reality (VR) systems through 5G networks. His work includes the proposal and analysis of hybrid localization techniques for VR tracking as well as development of the IoRL location server.|Wei Li is the algorithm engineer at Viavi Solutions. He specializes in physical layer design/implementation for 5G wireless system. He is responsible for physical/MAC layer design and integration of new products at Viavi. He is also responsible for technique development and research in H2020 project Internet of Radio Light (IoRL).|Lina Shi received the master’s degree in computer science and electronics for embedded systems from Université Grenoble Alpes, France in 2017. She is now a PhD student in visible light communication at Institut Supérieur D’électronique De Paris, France. Her main research area involves implementation and optimization of visible light communication system convergence in 5G network. Since 2018, she has been working on the VLC measurement and implementation in the EU Horizon 2020 5G IoRL project.|Xun Zhang received the PhD degree in electrical engineering from Nancy University, France in 2009. From 2011 to 2020, he was an associate professor and PhD supervisor at the Department of Electronic Engineering, Institute Suprieur dlectronique Paris (ISEP). He has published more than 100 journal and conference papers and book chapters. His current research interests include OWC, VLP, OFDM, and physical layer power efficient design in wireless commutation system.|Jintao Wang received the BEng and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University in 2001 and 2006, respectively. From 2009 to 2019, he was an associate professor at Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, where he has been a professor and a PhD supervisor since 2019. He has published more than 160 journal and conference papers and holds more than 50 national invention patents. His current research interests include MIMO, OFDM, and channel estimation and equalization techniques. He was the TPC co-chair of the IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting from 2013 to 2020.|Israel Koffman received the MSc degree in electrical engineering from Drexel University and the BSc degree in electrical engineering from Technion, Haifa, Israel. He is an expert in cellular networks (5G/4G), PHY/MAC, satellite communication, fixed wireless communications, interactive TV, broadcasting, tracking and telemetry, RF systems and antennas as well as strategic marketing plans, Marcom, marketing documentation, marketing research, representation and distribution agreements, VAR agreements, OEM agreements, and more. Prior to joining RunEL, he served as CEO and marketing and sales manager in Runcom as well as CTO at Gilat Satellite Networks and CEO at Orbit Communications. As the marketing and sales manager in Runcom, he led a cumulative amount of 80 million Euros sales to global Tier-1 cellular companies, such as Samsung (Korea), Motorola (USA), Nortel (Canada), Alcatel (France), Huawei (China), SK Telesys (Korea), Ultra (Canada), and more.|Charilaos C. Zarakovitis received the BSc, two MScs, an MPhil, and PhD degrees in electronic engineering. He has academic experience gained at NCSRD GR, TEI Piraeus GR, ULancaster UK, USurrey UK, UBrunel UK, and DIT IE as well as industrial experience gained at Motorola UK and Intracom GR, where he offered services in scientific research and development. His research interests include the design and decision-making in green communications systems, cyber physical systems, cognitive radios, visible light communications systems, vehicular networks, neural networks, in the sense of developing novel and optimised solutions based on distributed computing, machine learning, evolutionary bio-inspired computation, network virtualisation, system and control theory, game theory, probability theory, and quantum theory and convex analysis. His publications in these fields have attracted 500+ citations, with the

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Cite this article:

Yue Zhang, Hequn Zhang, John Cosmas, Nawar Jawad, Kareem Ali, Ben Meunier, Adam Kapovits, Li-Ke Huang, Wei Li, Lina Shi, Xun Zhang, Jintao Wang, Israel Koffman, Muller Robert, Charilaos C. Zarakovitis. Internet of radio and light: 5G building network radio and edge architecture. , 2020, 1: 37-57.

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http://icn.tsinghuajournals.com/10.23919/ICN.2020.0002 OR http://icn.tsinghuajournals.com/Y2020/V1/I1/37

Fig. 1 IoRL layered architecture.

Fig. 2 RRLH architecture with external WLAN.

Fig. 3 Workflow of Layers 1 and 2 interface downlink process.

Table 1 Measured location relevant parameters in the location database.

Parameter		Number of bits	Interval
UE ID		8	[0, 255]
	$X$	8	[0, 255]
UE coordinate	$Y$	8	[0, 255]
	$Z$	8	[0, 255]
Timestamp		13	MM/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss a zzz

Table 2 Estimated UE coordinates in the location database.

Parameter		Number of bits	Interval
RRLHC ID		8	[0, 255]
RRLH ID		8	[0, 255]
	$X$	8	[0, 255]
Antenna coordinate	$Y$	8	[0, 255]
	$Z$	8	[0, 255]
	$X$	8	[0, 255]
LED coordinate	$Y$	8	[0, 255]
	$Z$	8	[0, 255]

Table 3 Antenna and LED coordinates in the location database.

Fig. 4 Main components of the position sensing architecture.

Fig. 5 Communication among the main components of the position sensing architecture.

Fig. 6 Generation of mmWave SRS in the generic signal sub-frame.

Fig. 7 Parameter estimation setup with IF switch (a) and RF switch (b).

Fig. 8 Generation of VLC positioning signal in the generic 5G NR frame structure (SCS = 60 kHz) positioning procedure and location estimation.

Fig. 9 Positioning procedure using IPP protocol.

Fig. 10 Positioning procedure in the case of IoRL demos.

Parameter	Value	Remark
Carrier frequency (GHz)	3.5
Maximum bandwidth (MHz)	100
Point $A$ offset (kHz)	49 140
Subcarrier space (kHz)	30
Total number of resource blocks (RB)	273
Cyclic prefix	Normal
Number of sub-frames	10	Per frame
Number of slots	2	Per sub-frame
Number of symbols	14	Per slot
Time duration (ms)	0.5	Per slot

Table 4 Fixed configuration of frame design.

Fig. 11 Illustration of downlink frame structure.

Fig. 12 Allocations of SS/PBCH in one slot.

Table 5 PDCCH configuration.

Fig. 13 Illustration of PDCCH and PDSCH.

Table 6 PDSCH configuration.

Fig. 14 mmWave transmission testbed setup.

Fig. 15 VLC transmission testbed setup.

Table 7 VLC transmission testbed configurations.

Fig. 16 VLC EVM measurement with lens.

Fig. 17 VLC EVM measurement without lens.

Fig. 18 EVM of PDSCH and PBCH with different USRP transmitting gains.

Fig. 19 EVM of PDSCH and PBCH with different bandwidths.

Fig. 20 System throughput of PDSCH with different modulation coding schemes: (a) 16QAM, code rate of 616/1024; (b) 64QAM, code rate of 719/1024; and (c) 64QAM, code rate of 873/1024.

Fig. 21 EVM of PDSCH with different TX/RX distances.

Fig. 22 mmWave positioning simulation scenario with 8 RRLHs aligned in two rows.

Fig. 23 mmWave positioning simulation result of GDOP for an RRLH constellation with 8 RRLHs.

Fig. 24 Decomposed GDOP of 8 RRLHs into the main axes of the ellipsoid.

Fig. 25 GUI of VLC-based positioning for indoor environment configuration (top) and position simulation result (bottom).

Parameter	Value
Lab dimension (m)	5 (W) $×$ 5 (L) $×$ 3 (H)
Reflection coefficient of wall $ρ wall$	0.66
Reflection coefficient of ceilling $ρ ceilling$	0.35
Reflection coefficient of floor $ρ floor$	0.6
Lambertian mode of transmitter (m)	1
Elevation of transmitter ( $∘$ )	$- 90$
Azimuth of transmitter ( $∘$ )	$0$
Effective area of receiver $∅$ (mm)	7.00
Height of receiver (cm)	17.50
Elevation of receiver ( $∘$ )	$+ 90$
Azimuth of receiver ( $∘$ )	0
FOV of receiver ( $∘$ )	$60$
Photosensitivity of receiver (A/W)	0.42

Table 8 Laboratory environment setting and parameters.

Fig. 26 VLC location estimation on different positions.


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