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ECE PhD Dissertation Defense: Lorenzo Bertizzolo

June 8, 2021 @ 10:00 am - 11:00 am

PhD Dissertation Defense: Software-Defined Wireless Networking for 5G and Beyond: From Indoor Cells to Non-Terrestrial UAV Networks

Lorenzo Bertizzolo

Location: Microsoft Teams

Abstract: While Software-defined Networking (SDN) is a consolidated and widely adopted concept in fixed infrastructure, its adoption to the wireless domain has been limited by some fundamental challenges. Unlike traditional fixed infrastructure, which relies entirely on fiber communications, wireless networks suffer from unpredictable access and backhaul operations. Therefore, they ask for new architectural solutions to implement SDN. A prerequisite to implementing SDN for wireless is to adopt programmable radio hardware and software-based implementation of the wireless protocol stack. Then, it is necessary to adopt control APIs that expose the wireless protocols’ internal operations to external control. Finally, to bridge the gap between SDN theory and implementation, this thesis proposes a series of architectural solutions that provide the communication infrastructure and the architectural control innovations necessary to implement SDN control and optimization on real wireless systems. Specifically, this thesis proposes two different architectural solutions. For fixed Radio Access Networks (RANs) that benefit from a low-latency and reliable backhaul infrastructure, we propose to implement a centralized control approach similar to SDN for fixed infrastructure. Here a central controller collects network state information of a distributed RAN, solves a network control problem, and distributes the solutions to the individual wireless nodes. On the other hand, for infrastrcuture-less RANs, which implement both the access and the backhaul in wireless, we propose a new architectural solution that moves the control logic to the edge of the networks, to the very wireless nodes.

Details

Date:
June 8, 2021
Time:
10:00 am - 11:00 am

Other

Department
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Topics
MS/PhD Thesis Defense