In this letter, we focus on large intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) and propose a new codebook construction method to obtain a set of pre-designed phase-shift configurations for the IRS unit cells. Since the complexity of online optimization and the overhead for channel estimation scale with the size of the phase-shift codebook, the design of small codebooks is of high importance. We consider both continuous and discrete phase-shift designs and formulate the codebook construction as optimization problems. To solve the optimization problems, we propose an optimal algorithm for the discrete phase-shift design and a locally optimal solution for the continuous design. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms facilitate the construction of codebooks of different sizes and with different beamwidths. Moreover, the performance of the discrete phase-shift design with 2-bit quantization is shown to approach that of the continuous phase-shift design. Finally, our simulation results show that the proposed designs enable large transmit power savings compared to the existing linear and quadratic codebook designs.

This paper explores the issue of enabling Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) in view of the spatio-temporal correlations that characterize real 5th generation (5G) Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks. In this context, we consider a common Standalone Non-Public Network (SNPN) architecture as promoted by the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA), and propose a new variant of the 5G NR semi-persistent scheduler (SPS) to deal with uplink traffic correlations. A benchmark solution with a "smart" scheduler (SSPS) is compared with a more realistic adaptive approach (ASPS) that requires the scheduler to estimate some unknown network parameters. We demonstrate via simulations that the 1-ms latency requirement for URLLC is fulfilled in both solutions, at the expense of some complexity introduced in the management of the traffic. Finally, we provide numerical guidelines to dimension IIoT networks as a function of the use case, the number of machines in the factory, and considering both periodic and aperiodic traffic.

This paper addresses the problem of enabling inter-machine ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) in 5th generation (5G) NR Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks. In particular, we consider a common Standalone Non-Public Network (SNPN) architecture proposed by the 5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation (5G-ACIA), and formalize a full-stack end-to-end (E2E) latency analysis where semi-persistent uplink scheduling is considered in detail and compared with a baseline grant-based approach. Through simulations, we demonstrate that semi-persistent scheduling outperforms the baseline scheme and provides an E2E latency below 1 ms, thereby representing a desirable solution to allocate resources for URLLC. Notably, we provide numerical guidelines for dimensioning 3GPP-compliant IIoT networks for both periodic and aperiodic traffic applications, and as a function of the number of machines in the factory and of the offered traffic.

Background Digitalization affects almost every aspect of modern daily life, including a growing number of health care services along with telemedicine applications. Fifth-generation (5G) mobile communication technology has the potential to meet the requirements for this digitalized future with high bandwidths (10 GB/s), low latency (<1 ms), and high quality of service, enabling wireless real-time data transmission in telemedical emergency health care applications. Objective The aim of this study is the development and clinical evaluation of a 5G usability test framework enabling preclinical diagnostics with mobile ultrasound using 5G network technology. Methods A bidirectional audio-video data transmission between the ambulance car and hospital was established, combining both 5G-radio and -core network parts. Besides technical performance evaluations, a medical assessment of transferred ultrasound image quality and transmission latency was examined. Results Telemedical and clinical application properties of the ultrasound probe were rated 1 (very good) to 2 (good; on a 6 -point Likert scale rated by 20 survey participants). The 5G field test revealed an average end-to-end round trip latency of 10 milliseconds. The measured average throughput for the ultrasound image traffic was 4 Mbps and for the video stream 12 Mbps. Traffic saturation revealed a lower video quality and a slower video stream. Without core slicing, the throughput for the video application was reduced to 8 Mbps. The deployment of core network slicing facilitated quality and latency recovery. Conclusions Bidirectional data transmission between ambulance car and remote hospital site was successfully established through the 5G network, facilitating sending/receiving data and measurements from both applications (ultrasound unit and video streaming). Core slicing was implemented for a better user experience. Clinical evaluation of the telemedical transmission and applicability of the ultrasound probe was consistently positive.

This paper investigates the resource allocation algorithm design for wireless systems assisted by large intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRSs) with coexisting enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) and ultra reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) users. We consider a two-time scale resource allocation scheme, whereby the base station's precoders are optimized in each mini-slot to adapt to newly arriving URLLC traffic, whereas the IRS phase shifts are reconfigured only in each time slot to avoid excessive base station-IRS signaling. To facilitate efficient resource allocation design for large IRSs, we employ a codebook-based optimization framework, where the IRS is divided into several tiles and the phase-shift elements of each tile are selected from a pre-defined codebook. The resource allocation algorithm design is formulated as an optimization problem for the maximization of the average sum data rate of the eMBB users over a time slot while guaranteeing the quality-of-service (QoS) of each URLLC user in each mini-slot. An iterative algorithm based on alternating optimization (AO) is proposed to find a high-quality suboptimal solution. As a case study, the proposed algorithm is applied in an industrial indoor environment modelled via the Quadriga channel simulator. Our simulation results show that the proposed algorithm design enables the coexistence of eMBB and URLLC users and yields large performance gains compared to three baseline schemes. Furthermore, our simulation results reveal that the proposed two-time scale resource allocation design incurs only a small performance loss compared to the case when the IRSs are optimized in each mini-slot.

BACKGROUND Digitalization affects almost every aspect of modern daily life including a growing number of healthcare services along with telemedicine applications. 5th. generation mobile communication technology (5G) has the potential to meet the requirements for this digitalized future with high bandwidths (10 GB/s), low latency (< 1ms) and high quality of service, enabling wireless real-time data transmission in telemedical emergency health care applications. OBJECTIVE We present the results of a 5G field test framework enabling preclinical diagnostics with mobile ultrasound for emergency patients using 5G network slicing technology. METHODS A bi-directional audio-video data transmission between ambulance car and hospital was established, combining both 5G-radio and -core network parts. Besides technical performance evaluations also medical assessment of transferred ultrasound image quality and transmission latency was examined. RESULTS Telemedical and clinical application properties of the ultrasound probe were rated very good – good (VAS). The 5G field test revealed an average End-2-End round trip latency of 10 ms. The measured average throughput for the ultrasound image traffic was 4 Mbps and for the video stream 12 Mbps. Traffic saturation revealed a lower video quality and a slower video stream. Without core slicing, the throughput for the video application was reduced to 8 Mbps. Deployment of core network slicing facilitated quality and latency recovery. CONCLUSIONS Bi-directional data transmission between ambulance car and remote hospital site was successfully established through the 5G network, facilitating sending/receiving data and measurements from both applications (ultrasound unit and video streaming). Core slicing was implemented for better user experience.

In this paper, we present the ray tracing (RT) simulation in the 3D model of one highly dense clutter industrial hall, which is scanned by laser scanner and reconstructed based on accurate point cloud. The whole processing chain from the scanning of the physical environment to running the simulation is presented in detail. To validate the simulation results, the synthetic channel characteristics and large-scale parameters, including delay spread (DS), angular spread (AS) and path loss (PL), are compared with those obtained from channel sounding measurement in both LOS and NLOS cases, at 6.75 GHz, 30 GHz and 60 GHz. The simulation results show that some scatters are significant in all bands and may be well identified and tracked. This indicates that our target to generate a deterministic channel model or a hybrid channel model at multi-band for industrial scenario may be possible.

This paper addresses the problem of enabling inter-machine Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) in future 6G Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) networks. As far as the Radio Access Network (RAN) is concerned, centralized pre-configured resource allocation requires scheduling grants to be disseminated to the User Equipments (UEs) before uplink transmissions, which is not efficient for URLLC, especially in case of flexible/unpredictable traffic. To alleviate this burden, we study a distributed, user-centric scheme based on machine learning in which UEs autonomously select their uplink radio resources without the need to wait for scheduling grants or preconfiguration of connections. Using simulation, we demonstrate that a MultiArmed Bandit (MAB) approach represents a desirable solution to allocate resources with URLLC in mind in an IIoT environment, in case of both periodic and aperiodic traffic, even considering highly populated networks and aggressive traffic.

After two years of physical absence of major telecom companies at MWC Barcelona, this year marked the return of many of those companies to the most important annual event in the cellular industry with exhibitions matching pre-pandemic levels.

Fifth generation wireless networks will play a crucial role in the digitization of factories. Smart factories demand ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) services to ensure a defect-free uninterrupted production system. In our earlier work, we have proposed a sidelink-assisted cooperative retransmission scheme, in which the neighbouring user equipments (UEs) assist an error-prone downl...

The major advantages of 5G networks for eHealth use cases are the low latency transmission and network slicing. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of using 5G to enhance remote mobile ultrasound. We demonstrate a medical use case to show how eHealth applications can be enhanced with 5G radio technology and network slicing. By using a flexible, reconfigurable test-bed, we examine the benefits of ultra low latency communications (URLLC) and slicing in a real world field test. This field test not only shows the advantages, but also reveals additional requirements of using 5G for eHealth sector. Our field test examines the impact of communication latency and slicing for performance evaluations. The reported results validate the feasibility of using 5G technology for eHealth applications. Meanwhile, comprehensive evaluations give the first impression of how 5G-enhanced eHealth applications perform in the real world scenario.

In this paper, the application of 5G communication technology in an industrial environment is discussed. It acts as an enabler for the separation of sensors/actors and resources, like memory and computational power. 5G offers characteristics essential for the proposed approach like robustness, ultra-low latency, high data rates and massive number of devices. A demonstrator of a production line was used as an test environment for 5G in a real-world industrial application. A wide variety of heterogeneous sensor systems is used by a mobile robot platform. The collected data is transmitted via a 5G network to various Cloud systems. The product is treated as a cyber-physical system with a RFID tag in conjunction with the product memory system. The dynamic production flow approach is discussed centered around the robot which is used for transportation and inspection of products. This inspection is performed during the transportation and influences the production flow directly. This is desirable in the scope of Industry 4.0 to have an efficient production down to batch size 1.

This paper considers the application of 5G communication technology in robotics. A special focus lies on the ultra-reliable low latency communication (uRLLC) capabilities of the 5G network to facilitate a distributed control system. Additionally, the requirements on the system are also examined. The proposed approach allows offloading of time-critical, computational exhaustive operations onto a distributed node architecture such as cloud server and the communication between the robot and the cloud server is done via uRLLC 5G communication system. A prototype has been developed to test this offloading of time critical task in a real-world application performed by a mobile robot. A high level control calculation, including path planning and inverse kinematics, is performed on a central, external computation unit. The control of the base and the axis of the robot arm are calculated locally on the robot whereas the joint commands are executed on the motor level.

The 5G ultra reliable and low-latency communication (uRLLC) will become a significant enhancement to the future assisted driving and fully autonomous driving. For experimenting various uRLLC-enabled cooperative driving applications, we have designed a Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) testbed based on the software defined radio (SDR), which features flexible reconfiguration in short frame structure and numerology, fast real-time processing, flexible synchronization and easy to deploy. The usecases and communication requirements for future cooperative autonomous driving are discussed to motivate the system design and technical enablers that can achieve the most stringent linklevel communication requirements of cooperative autonomous driving. The main building blocks of the testbed include a reconfigurable RF front-end and optimized base-band processing on general purposed CPUs. The technical enablers include a new OFDM-like waveform based on Pulse-shaping, a flexible and self-contained frame-structure design, GNSS-aided hybrid synchronization and low-latency scheduled multiple-access. We finally present some experimental results from lab measurements and field trial.

Ultimate goal of next generation Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication systems is enabling accident-free cooperative automated driving that uses the available roadway efficiently. To achieve this goal, the communication system will need to enable a diverse set of use cases, each with a specific set of requirements. We discuss the main use case categories, analyze their requirements, and compare them against the capabilities of currently available communication technologies. Based on the analysis, we identify a gap and point out towards possible system design for 5G V2X that could close the gap. Furthermore, we discuss an architecture of the 5G V2X radio access network that incorporates diverse communication technologies, including current and cellular systems in centimeter wave and millimeter wave, IEEE 802.11p and vehicular visible light communications. Finally, we discuss the role of future 5G V2X systems in enabling more efficient vehicular transportation: from improved traffic flow through reduced inter-vehicle spacing on highways and coordinated intersections in cities (the cheapest way to increasing the road capacity), to automated smart parking (no more visits to the parking!), ultimately enabling seamless end-to-end personal mobility.

We propose a novel unified radio frame structure and medium access control (MAC) protocol for low-latency and highly reliable vehicle-to-X (V2X) communications. The radio frame structure enables short latency transmission and the unified device-to-device (D2D) communication for V2X services. The unified MAC protocol simultaneously enables the cellular-assisted and ad-hoc D2D communications to enable reliable V2X services in full / partial / out-of-cellular-coverage scenario. The initial system-level simulations show promising performance results in benchmarking scenarios: Unified D2D MAC can achieve radio transmission latency below 5 ms at high reliability of 90% packet reception ratio and with high availability of coverage radius of up to 200 meter. Our on-going work is expected to provide further evaluation results of the unified D2D MAC in heterogeneous V2X scenarios.

Location management is an important part in mobile cellular networks since the registered devices can change location while connected to the network. Location management has been of prime research interest over the past decades and several mechanisms have been proposed for legacy systems. However, these mechanisms have to be revisited in the scope of LTE and especially 5G networks where new usage scenarios emerge. In this paper we examine the suitability of existing solutions for 5G networks. Towards this goal we provide a summary of the existing proposals and also analyze a number of patents to verify what the industry believes as really feasible solutions. Then we pinpoint the problems to be expected in 5G networks, with respect to location management, and we propose a future proof path for the design of new location management schemes. Keywords: Location management, location update, paging, 5G cellular networks.