The potential transmission capacity of a standard single-mode fiber peaks at around 100Tb/s owing to fiber nonlinearity and the bandwidth limitation of amplifiers. As the last frontier of multiplexing, space-division multiplexing (SDM) has been studied intensively in recent years. Although there is still time to deploy such a novel fiber communication infrastructure; basic research on SDM has been carried out. Therefore, a comprehensive review is worthwhile at this time toward further practical investigations.

Socially aware networking is an emerging research field that aims to improve the current networking technologies and realize novel network services by applying social network analysis (SNA) techniques. Conducting socially aware networking studies requires knowledge of both SNA and communication networking, but it is not easy for communication networking researchers who are unfamiliar with SNA to obtain comprehensive knowledge of SNA due to its interdisciplinary nature. This paper therefore aims to fill the knowledge gap for networking researchers who are interested in socially aware networking but are not familiar with SNA. This paper surveys three types of important SNA techniques for socially aware networking: identification of influential nodes, link prediction, and community detection. Then, this paper introduces how SNA techniques are used in socially aware networking and discusses research trends in socially aware networking.

With the rising importance of information security, the necessity of implementing better security measures in the physical layer as well as the upper layers is becoming increasing apparent. Given the development of more accurate and less expensive measurement devices, high-performance computers, and larger storage devices, the threat of advanced attacks at the physical level has expanded from the military and governmental spheres to commercial products. In this paper, we review the issue of information security degradation through electromagnetic (EM)-based compromising of security measures in the physical layer (i.e., EM information security). Owing to the invisibility of EM radiation, such attacks can be serious threats. We first introduce the mechanism of information leakage through EM radiation and interference and then present possible countermeasures. Finally, we explain the latest research and standardization trends related to EM information security.

This paper proposes a radio propagation prediction method that uses point cloud data based on a hybrid of the ray-tracing (RT) method and an effective roughness (ER) model in urban environments for the fifth generation mobile communications system using high frequency bands. The proposed prediction method incorporates propagation characteristics that consider diffuse scattering from surface irregularities. The validity of the proposed method is confirmed by comparisons of measurement and prediction results gained from the proposed method and a conventional RT method based on power delay and angular profiles. From predictions based on the power delay and angular profiles, we find that the proposed method, assuming the roughness of σ_h=1mm, accurately predicts the propagation characteristics in the 20GHz band for urban line-of-sight environments. The prediction error for the delay spread is 2.1ns to 9.7ns in an urban environment.

The potential for using millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies in future 5G wireless cellular communication systems has motivated the study of large-scale antenna arrays to achieve highly directional beamforming. However, the conventional fully digital beamforming (DBF) methods which require one radio frequency (RF) chain per antenna element are not viable for large-scale antenna arrays due to the high cost and large power consumption of high frequency RF chain components. Hybrid precoding can significantly reduce the number of required RF chains and relieve the huge power consumption in mmWave massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, thus attracting much interests from academic and industry. In this paper, we consider the downlink communication of a massive multiuser MIMO (MU-MIMO) system in the mmWave channel, and propose a low complexity hybrid block diagonal geometric mean decomposition (BD-GMD) scheme. More specially, a joint transmit-receive (Tx-Rx) analog beamforming with large-scale arrays is proposed to improve channel gain, and then a low-dimensional BD-GMD approach is implemented at the equivalent baseband channel to mitigate the inter-user interference and equalize different data streams of each user. With the help of successive interference cancellation (SIC) at the receiver, we can decompose each user's MIMO channel into parallel sub-channels with identical higher SNRs/SINRs, thus equal-rate coding can be applied across the sub-channels of each user. Finally, simulation results verify that the proposed hybrid BD-GMD precoding scheme outperforms existing conventional fully digital and hybrid precoding schemes and is able to achieve much better BER performance.

Traffic matrix (TM) estimation has been extensively studied for decades. Although conventional estimation techniques assume that traffic volumes are unchanged between origins and destinations, packets are often lost on a path due to traffic burstiness, silent failures, etc. Counting every path at every link, we could easily get the traffic volumes with their change, but this approach significantly increases the measurement cost since counters are usually implemented using expensive memory structures like a SRAM. This paper proposes a mathematical model to estimate TMs including volume changes. The method is established on a Boolean fault localization technique; the technique requires fewer counters as it simply determines whether each link is lossy. This paper extends the Boolean technique so as to deal with traffic volumes with error bounds that requires only a few counters. In our method, the estimation errors can be controlled through parameter settings, while the minimum-cost counter placement is determined with submodular optimization. Numerical experiments are conducted with real network datasets to evaluate our method.

The traffic of the future metro network will dynamically change not only in volume but also in destination to support the application of virtualization technology to network edge equipment such as cloud edges to achieve cost-effectiveness. Therefore, the future metro network will have to accommodate traffic cost-effectively, even though both the traffic volume and the traffic destination will change dynamically. To handle to this trend, in this paper, we propose a future metro network architecture based on Next-Generation Passive Optical Network Stage 2 systems that offers cost-effectiveness while supporting virtual machine migration of cloud edges. The basic idea of the proposed method is sharing a burst-mode receiver between the continuous-mode transmitters and burst-mode transmitters. In this paper, we show the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method with experiments on prototype systems, and simulations for the preliminary evaluation of network capital expenditure.

Congestion control is a hot topic in named data networking (NDN). Congestion control methods for NDN are classified into two approaches: the rate-based approach and the window-based approach. In the window-based approach, the optimum window size cannot be determined due to the largely changing round-trip time. Therefore, the rate-based approach is considered to be suitable for NDN and has been studied actively. However, there is still room for improvement in the window-based approach because hop-by-hop control in this approach has not been explored. In this paper, we propose a hop-by-hop widow-based congestion control method for NDN (HWCC). The proposed method introduces a window-size control for per-hop Interest transmission using hop-by-hop acknowledgment. In addition, we extend HWCC so that it can support multipath forwarding (M-HWCC) in order to increase the network resources utilization. The simulation results show that both of HWCC and M-HWCC achieve high throughput performance, as well as the max-min fairness, while effectively avoiding congestion.

Traffic engineering refers to techniques to accommodate traffic efficiently by dynamically configuring traffic routes so as to adjust to changes in traffic. If traffic changes frequently and drastically, the interval of route reconfiguration should be short. However, with shorter intervals, obtaining traffic information is problematic. To calculate a suitable route, accurate traffic information of the whole network must be gathered. This is difficult in short intervals, owing to the overhead incurred to monitor and collect traffic information. In this paper, we propose a framework for traffic engineering in cases where only partial traffic information can be obtained in each time slot. The proposed framework is inspired by the human brain, and uses conditional probability to make decisions. In this framework, a controller is deployed to (1) obtain a limited amount of traffic information, (2) estimate and predict the probability distribution of the traffic, (3) configure routes considering the probability distribution of future predicted traffic, and (4) select traffic that should be monitored during the next period considering the system performance yielded by route reconfiguration. We evaluate our framework with a simulation. The results demonstrate that our framework improves the efficiency of traffic accommodation even when only partial traffic information is monitored during each time slot.

Topological inference is the foundation of network performance analysis and optimization. Due to the difficulty of obtaining prior topology information of wireless sensor networks, we propose routing topology inference, RTI, which reconstructs the routing topology from source nodes to sink based on marking packets and probing locally. RTI is not limited to any specific routing protocol and can adapt to a dynamic and lossy networks. We select topological distance and reconstruction time to evaluate the correctness and effectiveness of RTI and then compare it with PathZip and iPath. Simulation results indicate that RTI maintains adequate reconstruction performance in dynamic and packet loss environments and provides a global routing topology view for wireless sensor networks at a lower reconstruction cost.

This paper presents a design for the perpendicular-corporate feed in a four-layer circularly-polarized parallel-plate slot array antenna. We place a dielectric layer with adequate permittivity in the region between the coupling-aperture and the radiating-slot layers to remove x-shaped cavity walls completely in the radiating part of a conventional planar corporate-feed waveguide slot array antenna. To address fabrication constraints, the dielectric layer consists of PTFE and air. It excites a strong standing wave in the region and so provides 2×2-element subarrays with uniform excitation. None of the slot layers are in electrical contact due to air gaps between the slot layers. The four-layer structure with apertures for circular polarization contributes to wideband design for axial ratios because of the eigenmodes in the desired band. We realize an 11.9% bandwidth for axial ratios of less than 3.0dB as confirmed by measurements in the 60GHz band. At the design frequency, the measured realized gain is 32.7dBi with an antenna efficiency of 75.5%.

Smartphones for wireless communication typically consist of a large area frontal liquid crystal display (LCD), which incorporates a metal back plate, and a back cover chassis made from metal. Leveraging this structure a new approach to construct antennas for smartphones is proposed where the complete metal back cover chassis and LCD back plate are used as the radiating element and ground plane. In the design a feedline is connected between the metal back cover chassis and LCD back plate, along with shorts at various locations between the two metal plates, to control the resonance frequency of the resulting antenna. Multiple-band operation is possible without the need for any slots in the plates for radiation. Results show that antenna frequency reconfigurability can be achieved when switching function is added to the shorts so that several wireless communication bands can be covered. This approach is different from existing metallic frame antenna designs currently available in the market. A design example is provided which uses one PIN diode for the switching shorts and the target frequency bands are 740-780MHz and 900-1000MHz & 1700-1900MHz. The optimization of LC matchings and concerns of hand effects and metallic components between the chassis and LCD metal back plate are also addressed.

In stepped FM radar, the transmitter intermittently transmits narrowband pulse trains of frequencies that are incremented in steps, and the receiver performs phase detection on each pulse and applies the inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) to create ultra-short pulses in the time domain. Furthermore, since the transmitted signal consists of a narrowband pulse train of different frequencies, the transmitter can avoid arbitrary frequency bands while sending the pulse train (spectrum holes), allowing these systems to coexist with other narrowband wireless systems. However, spectrum holes cause degradation in the distance resolution and range sidelobe characteristics of wireless systems. In this paper, we propose a spectrum hole compensation method for stepped FM radars using Khatri-Rao product extended-phase processing to overcome the problem of spectrum holes and investigate the effectiveness of this method through experiments. Additionally, we demonstrate that the proposed method dramatically improves the range sidelobe and distance resolution characteristics.