WORKSHOPS

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The demands for high data rates and ultra-reliable coverage become demanding issues due to increase number of population in the world by 2020. The huge demand for high quality life makes the administrator and the governments to put carefully planning in cities in a smarter way. As a premier agent for stimulating a quality of life compatible with a resource efficient economy, the smart city phenomenon has recently seized the imagination of the academia and the industry significantly. As the Internet of things (IoT) and Tactile Internet are predictable to be a primary driving force for future cities, advanced communication methods will play a crucial role in assisting real-time data acquisition and utilization from distributed sensors. However, smart cities will also have to function within the limitations of the national economy and available resources. Consequently, the challenges in the realization of smart cities are many and varied.

In general, low energy consumption, constrained bandwidth, latency and budgetary limitations are predominating. In order to overcome these hurdles, it is essential that new ideas and theories for optimizing the network in energy, spectral, latency and monetary terms are presented to achieve a robust environment monitoring and sustainable transportation network, among other provisions. This led the researchers to pave the way for future wireless networks under the umbrella of 5G communications as well. This is an amalgamation of a multitude of technologies ranging from device-level algorithms such as low power transmissions to system-level architectures such as software-defined networking (SDN), the challenges posed by each of these techniques are critical. The smart city idea is also known to work at the intersection of various techniques such as device-to-device (D2D) communications, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), millimeter wave (mmWave) communications, full-duplex transmissions and Internet of Things (IoT) to name a few.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Thursday, October 12, 08:30 – 18:00, Verdun

WS01/S01: Communications for Networked Smart Cities I

WS01/S02: Communications for Networked Smart Cities II

WS01/S03: Communications for Networked Smart Cities III

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E-mail: workshop.ws-01.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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There has been a vast increase in the range and proliferation of wireless technologies over recent decades, which has led to the crowding of existing spectrum. Among available solutions to address the resulting congestion and shortage of capacity, cognitive radio (CR) and spectrum sharing concepts have been envisioned. Such concepts will be particularly important in the context of 5G communication systems, where despite the introduction of novel mm-wave “pioneer bands”, there will be evermore increased pressure – especially on lower-frequency spectrum. This is due to the coverage and reliability requirements of 5G, in tandem with vastly increased capacity and throughput. CR and other spectrum sharing paradigms can address such issues through increasing the net spectrum available to each particular user. CR can also serve other benefits, such as enhancing the management, performance and coexistence of heterogeneous networks with diverse radio access technologies. It is widely expected that new emerging technologies applied in 5G networks will enable pioneering services, making 5G both socially beneficial and economically viable. Advanced solutions must be identified in both technical and regulatory domains to realize CR and spectrum sharing for such 5G and other future networks. Towards such ends, this workshop aims to gather and promote discussion among researchers, engineers, practitioners, and end-user groups, with the goal of inspiring the analysis and development of CR and spectrum sharing solutions for future networks. A key focus of this workshop is on the practical implementation of the above concepts, and “shift-to-market” considerations. Moreover, this workshop also focuses on issues, advances and challenges in various research domains related to cognition and wider spectrum sharing schemes in future generation communication systems and networks.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Thursday, October 12, 09:00 – 18:00, Lachine

WS02/S01: Fifth-Generation Networks

WS02/S02: Resource Allocation and Access

WS02/S03: Context and Constraints

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E-mail: workshop.ws-02.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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The proliferation of wireless devices in the upcoming evolution of 5G will have a profound impact on the communications industry. Wireless traffic will also surge due to the increasing per-device data demand from novel services and applications. These changes to the wireless communications landscape are driving the demand for ultra-dense wireless network deployments. In recent years, this demand has led to a growing interest in optical wireless (OW) networks as a novel solution. Researchers have shown promising data rates for OW communications via Infrared (IR), visible light communication (VLC), and ultraviolet (UV) technologies. These high data rate capabilities coupled with the directionality of the optical medium allow OW small cells to provide very high bandwidth density (b/s/m2). Accordingly, densely distributed OW small cells have the potential to provide additional wireless capacity in the indoor environments where it is needed most.

Compared to traditional RF networks; these OW deployments can provide very high aggregate capacity; however, densely distributed OW small cells are challenged to accommodate highly dynamic environments. Specifically, the OW channel is susceptible to blocking and the smaller coverage region of each cell implies that devices with high mobility will change connections frequently. In order to mitigate the impact of these limitations, heterogeneous networks (HetNets) have been proposed where OW networks supplement traditional RF small cell networks – combining the aggregate capacity gains of the former with the coverage and reliability of the later. These Coexisting Radio and Optical Wireless Deployments, or CROWD networks, are of high interest as we look for new ways to accommodate the demand that will be placed on next generation wireless networks.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Thursday, October 12, 13:30 – 15:00, St-Michel

WS03 – TR1/S43: Coexisting Radio and Optical Wireless (Joint Session)

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E-mail: workshop.ws-03.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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Wireless network virtualization and cloud-based technologies allow flexible dynamic network composition and lower the entry barriers to the market for both emerging wireless resource providers and niche VNOs. As a result, the economic landscape of providing connectivity services is changing, and the existing pricing and procuring mechanisms of wireless services are becoming obsolete.

Virtualization will generate a more heterogeneous wireless networks ecosystem with new players both on the supply side of wireless resources – e.g. local infrastructure providers – and on the demand side – e.g. VNOs specialized in Internet of things services. New and dynamic mechanisms for wireless network orchestration are required to address this heterogeneous environment. In addition to technical aspects related to network management and operation, these new mechanisms should take into account the economic aspects of accessing wireless resources that are heterogeneous both in terms of ownership and type. This creates an interdisciplinary research area that needs a vast variety of expertise including knowledge of network architecture, data analysis and machine learning, game and auction theory, mechanism design, two-side pricing and billing, and user behavior analysis.

This workshop will focus on the technical and economic challenges of virtualized wireless networks. The goal of this workshop is to engage wireless engineers, data scientists and economists in a joint action and enhance their collaborations in understanding of the network virtualization ecosystem.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Thursday, October 12, 08:30 – 10:30, Lasalle

WS04 – TR4/S11: Economics of Wireless Virtualization (Joint Session)

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E-mail: workshop.ws-04.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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The key challenges in the success of mobile applications are the ability to personalize to the customer requirements, and the trustworthiness of the application through security and dynamic update of information. This workshop explores potentials and constraints of personalization of mobile applications and challenges for smart cities and smart citizens. New techniques and methodologies for personalization such as indoor localization, bi-channel communication between service providers and users are within the scope of the workshop. Furthermore, processes for user-centric design such as co-creation, techniques for secure access and dynamic data updates for secure smart cities and smart citizens are of special interest. As a novel and exciting addition, this workshop includes a specialist tutorial session on “Co-creation technique – the user-centric living labs approach” presented by Mr. Grahame Smith, Head of Allied Health at LJMU. The participants for the tutorial session will be selected based on their EOI expressed through a short description. Also our industry partners will run a product “elevator pitch” session (EOI required). Brief descriptions of the intended panel sessions are given below.

• Mobile applications for mission critical services such as disaster recovery: This session will explore novel intelligent mobility models and protocols to provide temporary communication infrastructure in effectively managing the rescue operation.
• Personalized mobile applications in healthcare for smart citizens: Mobile apps in the healthcare sector have increased rapidly, all vying for the customer base that want to take control of their health and independent living. However, the success depends on the application’s ability to sustain user engagement. Co-creation or participatory design as termed by the health and psychology experts is a proven way of motivating the users and sustaining their engagement with the tool. This session will explore techniques and methodologies for co-creation. Lessons learned from challenges and benefits gained from opportunities in healthcare applications will also be explored.
• Personalized mobile applications in transport for smart cities: One of the deciding factors on a city’s status as a smart city is the transport facility. The transport sector has been working hard to enhance the end-to-end journey experience of their customers. In recent years, there have been several calls for funding applications focusing on this theme. In addition, they also explore ways of enhancing the user experience through stations. The challenges for this focus could be personalizing the information provided to the user, the ability to locate the user indoors/underground, facilitating bi-channel communication between service providers and service users. This session will explore new techniques for indoor location, personalization, dynamic data analysis or cloud computing for providing quality of service for smart cities.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Wednesday, October 11, 08:30 – 18:30, Verdun

WS05/S01: Personalized Mobile Apps for Smart Cities and Citizens I

WS05/S02: Tutorial by Grahame Smith on “Co-Creation Technique – The User-Centric Living Labs Approach”

WS05/S03: Personalized Mobile Apps for Smart Cities and Citizens II

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E-mail: workshop.ws-05.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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Full-duplex (FD) has been considered as an advanced radio technology for next generation communication systems. It breaks the barrier of today’s communications by supporting bi-directional communications without time, frequency and spatial duplexers. By transmitting and receiving at the same time, on the same frequency and on the same spatial link, full-duplex has the potential to double the system capacity and reduce the end-to-end latency. The major challenge for a FD capable device (e.g., a FD capable base station or a FD capable user equipment) is how to effectively cancel the self-interference (SI) that consists of the leakage and reflection of its own transmitting signal which can be more than 100 dB stronger than the sensitivity level of a receiver. In the past few years, SI cancellation techniques have attracted considerable attention from both industry and academia, and have made remarkable progress in design, implementation and prototyping. Multi-stage and cross-domain approaches involving antenna design, analogue and digital signal processing have made FD technology feasible for future communication products.

In the meantime, research and investigation of FD-enabled communication networks are on the horizon. The implication and impact of FD-enabled devices on the throughput and scheduling of FD networks have been widely studied. Traditional communication networks have been challenged by the additional interference caused by FD nodes and devices. One issue that is particularly detrimental to FD networks is the additional mutual interference (MI) among FD capable nodes and devices when all or some of them operate in full-duplex mode. It suggests that network-wide SI and MI cancellation and mitigation are needed, and FD-aware and FD-optimum upper layer protocols are keys to capitalizing FD gains in FD networks.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Tuesday, October 10, 09:00 – 18:00, Verdun

WS06/S01: Full-Duplex Technologies: Interference

WS06/S03 : Full-Duplex Communications: Systems and Networks

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E-mail: workshop.ws-06.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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For more than a decade, the Internet of Things (IoT) and its enabling services have been increasingly narrowing the gap between the physical world and cyberspace. It has been pursued mostly by making objects smarter and connecting them pervasively through different technologies. We are witnessing that IoT is revolutionizing the way we interact to our environment. There are many concepts along this road which relate to the general vision of IoT, among which we can refer to (but not limited to): smart factories, smart cities, mobile health, smart products, smart spaces, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, intelligent transportation systems, smart manufacturing, surveillance, telemetry, industry 4.0, E-health and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications. What those concepts have in common is that they provide a platform that different smart objects and their related data are integrated to create some services.

Research activities have been ongoing in both academia and industry to pave the path towards vast deployment of IoT services and meeting their requirements. However, many issues should be addressed to enable seamless connectivity of devices, systems, and services to introduce varieties of applications. These issues include matters related to embedded sensors and smart objects, resource-constrained devices and networks, secure and robust communications for massive deployment of the sensors and devices, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications (URLLC) for the mission critical systems, data collection and analysis, IoT services and IoT techno-economics aspects, IoT platforms, just to name a few. Many standardization bodies (e.g., 3GPP, ETSI TC M2M, 6LowPAN, IETF, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15, Bluetooth SIG etc.) have launched activities to support the spreading of IoT. More notably and most recently, the 3GPP has standardized narrowband-IoT (NB-IoT) to address the requirements of IoT. The purpose is to provide improved indoor coverage, support to massive number of low throughput devices, low delay sensitivity, ultra-low device cost, low device power consumption, and optimized network architecture.

Thus, the research in this area is still underway and novel solutions are needed to efficiently serve a huge number of objects and devices that interact autonomously at a global level in heterogeneous networks. The goal of this workshop is to bring experts and various state-of-the-art research activities in both academia and industry together in the forefront of IoT to present and debate trends, advanced technologies, services and applications that will make possible the integration of verticals.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Tuesday, October 10, 08:30 – 18:30, Lachine

WS07/S01: IoT – Road Ahead: Apps, Challenges and Solutions I

WS07/S02: IoT – Road Ahead: Apps, Challenges and Solutions II

WS07/S03: IoT – Road Ahead: Apps, Challenges and Solutions III

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E-mail: workshop.ws-07.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

The fifth (5G) mobile communication systems are attracting significant amount of interest from industry and academia. Compared to legacy 3G/4G systems which were voice and data-oriented, 5G is expected to cover a wide range of use cases including enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliability low-latency communication (URLLC), and massive machine-type-communication (mMTC).

Massive MIMO/FD-MIMO is expected to be one of the essential technologies in meeting the diverse performance requirements of 5G. For eMBB with 1000x faster data-rate than 4G, massive MIMO with hundreds of antennas is considered a key enabler for overcoming challenging propagation conditions, especially in mmWave band. For mMTC with millions of connected devices, massive MIMO enables extreme high-order MU-MIMO and new multiple-access schemes such as non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA). For URLLC communications with very low latency and very high reliability (e.g., vehicular communications, automotive control), superior spatial diversity from massive antenna arrays is essential.

The performance gain of massive MIMO/FD-MIMO comes at the expense of increased system challenges including reference signal, channel quantization, CSI feedback, power consumption, beam steering and tracking, beam failure detection and recovery, as well as hardware complexity. The goal of this workshop is to bring together leading researchers in both academia and industry to share their views on these challenges, discuss progresses from both theoretical and implementation perspectives, and identify concepts and technologies that facilitate the successful rollout of massive MIMO in future 5G networks.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Wednesday, October 11, 09:00 – 15:00, Lachine

WS08/S01: Massive MIMO/FD-MIMO I

WS08/S02: Massive MIMO/FD-MIMO II

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E-mail: workshop.ws-08.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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Different from conventional mobile network designs primarily optimizing the transmission efficiency of single service (e.g., voice/video streams), industry and academia have agreed with the manifold wireless features to be supported by the fifth generation networks (5G). In Sep. 2015, International Telecommunication Union, Radio-communication Sector (ITU-R), has identified three categories for these upcoming wireless features, including enhanced mobile broadband, eMBB (for high data rate transmissions in ultra-high resolution voice/video streams, mobile social networks, virtual/sensory reality), ultra-reliable and low latency communications, URLLC (for low latency and reliable data exchange in unmanned driving, intelligent transportation systems, industrial automation), and massive machine-type communications, mMTC (for small size packets and massive amount of terminal in smart grid/city, sensor networks, Internet-of-Things). In the meantime, ITU-R has also identified the radio transmission requirements of 5G (known as International Mobile Telecommunications 2020, IMT-2020), including 20 Gbps peak data rate, 100 Mbps user experienced data rate, 10 Mbps/m2 area traffic capacity, 106 devices/km2 connection density, 1 ms latency and mobility up to 500 km/h.

To this end, 3GPP consequently launched the standardization activity of 5G New Radio in 2016 to frame Release 15 as the Phase-I 5G specifications. To satisfy these unprecedented radio transmission requirements, a number of technologies not involved in LTE-Advanced will be adopted by New Radio, including utilizing spectrum above 6 GHz (up to 100 GHz), beamforming in both the control and user planes, gNBs with multiple remote transmission/ reception points (TRPs), frame structure with agile resource arrangement, non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), new waveforms, etc. In Phase-II specifications, new radio sidelink transmissions, mobile backhaul, unlicensed access, ultra-dense network/access, etc., are also projected for support. In addition to these radio access technologies, network function virtualization (NFV), software-defined network (SDN), network slicing, open stack/architecture are also considerably studied for the next generation core network. The purpose of this workshop is to bring together state-of-the-art innovations, research activities (both in academia and industry), and the corresponding standardization impacts of New Radio, so as to understand the inspirations, requirements, and the promising technical options to boost and enrich activities in the area of New Radio.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

uesday, October 10, 08:55 – 18:00, Lasalle

WS09/S01: New Radio Technologies I

WS09/S02: New Radio Technologies II

WS09/S03: New Radio Technologies III

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E-mail: workshop.ws-09.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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With the developments and applications of wireless communications, more and more applications require advanced radio transmission technologies (RTT) to reach the goal of high power and spectrum efficiencies as well as flexibility and adaptation to multiple scenarios such as mobile broadband, ultra reliable communications, the internet of things, etc.

Recently, intelligent optimization and self-learning algorithms have been widely studied as potential solutions. Among the latter, the vey promising evolution algorithms aim to find the optimal operating point of complex non-continuous cost functions using biologically inspired techniques such as genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization.

Self-learning algorithms are lighted up with the success of machine learning in the artificial intelligence field. Given the strong requirements expected from RTT and the fruitful achievements in evolution and self-learning algorithms (ESLA), it is foreseen that applying ESLA to RTT may solve some of the most daunting challenges in wireless communications.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Wednesday, October 11, 08:30 – 10:30, Lasalle

WS10/S01: Full Radio with Evolution and Self Learning

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E-mail: workshop.ws-10.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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Vehicular communication is characterized by diverse environments, high mobility of both the communicating entities and their surroundings, and comparatively low antenna heights on vehicles. These characteristics are very different from classical cellular cases and make the vehicular propagation and channel modeling particularly challenging. Additionally, the ultimate goal of next generation Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication systems is enabling accident-free cooperative automated driving. To achieve this goal, the communication system will need to enable a diverse set of use cases, which can result in channel conditions not fully explored in the past (e.g., blockage effects caused by densely packed platooning vehicles, communication between vehicles and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists, etc.). Finally, in recent years, different frequency bands have been proposed for V2X communications (e.g., in centimeter wave bands, millimeter wave bands, and in visible light spectrum). The impact of frequency band and the propagation characteristics of high frequency (millimeter wave) V2X channels, etc. become very important objects of investigation.

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS AND CO-CHAIRS

DATE, AGENDA, AND MEETING ROOM

Wednesday, October 11, 13:30 – 18:30, Lasalle

WS11/S01: V2X Channel Measurements and Modeling I

WS11/S02: V2X Channel Measurements and Modeling II

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E-mail: workshop.ws-11.co-chairs@pimrc2017.org

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